Federal Street & Pleasant Valley Passenger Railway Co. v. Pittsburg

Citations

• 226 Pa. 419
• 75 A. 662
• 1910 Pa. LEXIS 787

Syllabus

<p>Taxation — Municipalities—Street railways — Real estate — Pittsburg and Allegheny City — Acts of January 4,1859, P. L. 828, and February 7, 1906, P. L. 7.</p> <p>1. While taxation is an incident of sovereignty absolutely necessary to maintain government, the authority to impose taxes depends upon express legislative grant and' not upon incidental governmental power. There is no such thing as taxation by implication. The burden is always upon the taxing authority to point to the act of assembly which authorizes the imposition of the tax claimed.</p> <p>2. The real estate of a public or quasi public corporation such as a street railway company, essential to the exercise of its corporate franchises, is not subject to assessment and taxation for local purposes in the absence of legislative authority imposing such taxes.</p> <p>3. There is nothing either in the Act of January 4, 1859, P. L. 828, or in the Act of February 7, 1906, P. L. 7, or any other act, which authorizes the consolidated city of Pittsburg to tax the real estate of a street railway company situated in the city of Allegheny, and necessary and essential for the exercise of the franchises of the company for local purposes.</p> <p>4. The consolidated city of Pittsburg has the power to levy and assess taxes upon all taxable subjects just as those subjects of taxation existed at the time of the consolidation, but has no power to extend the territorial limits of the local act of 1859 so that a new subject of taxation will be created and property made taxable in a locality where neither by general or local laws was such property ever taxable before.</p>