Dupuy v. Johns

Citations

• 261 Pa. 40
• 104 A. 565
• 1918 Pa. LEXIS 685

Syllabus

<p>Taxation — Corporations—Corporations paying State tax on capital stock — Foreign manufacturing corporations — Shares in hands of owner — Taxation for county purposes — Act of June 17, 1918, P. L. 507, Sec. 1 — Constitutional law — Constitution of Pennsylvania, Article IX, secs. 1 and ¿S — Uniform taxes — Exemption—Classification.</p> <p>1. Tbe Pennsylvania capital stock tax is, in effect, a tax upon property represented, 'by tbe capital in question; and, in making tbe assessment of such tax, assets outside of the State can not be considered, for no property so situated can be taxed, either directly or indirectly, by the Commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions.</p> <p>2. It is the public policy of the Commonwealth to exempt from taxation corporate bodies, domestic and foreign, doing a manufacturing business in Pennsylvania, to the extent that their capital is invested within the State; also, in order to make the exemption effective, to relieve the shares of such manufacturing corporations from taxation in the hands of resident stockholders.</p> <p>3. A tax on stock of foreign corporations, eo nomine, in the hands of resident shareholders, is not a tax on the property represented by the capital of the corporation, but is a personal levy against the shareholder in question, based on the value of his stock, without any intent to reach the property that gives the latter its value.</p> <p>4. Under Section 1, of the Act of June 1Y, 19Í3, P. L. 50Y, levying a tax on personal property for county purposes, shares of stock of a foreign corporation, having assets within and without the State, part of whose capital within the State is employed in manufacturing, are wholly exempt from taxation in the hands of resident stockholders.</p> <p>5. Stockholders, resident in Pennsylvania, of corporations who do no business, make no official reports and pay no -capital stock tax in this State, must pay a tax on the stocks of such corporations held by them.</p> <p>6. Capital s