Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co. v. Oklahoma

Citations

• 240 U.S. 522
• 36 S. Ct. 453
• 60 L. Ed. 779
• 1916 U.S. LEXIS 1479

Syllabus

<p>A tax upon a lease made is a tax upon the power to make the lease. Leases that cannot be taxed as an entity cannot be taxed vicariously by taxing the stock of the corporation owning them where the only value of the stock is the value of the leases.</p> <p>Oil leases of land in Oklahoma made by the Osage tribe of Indians under authority of the Acts of February 28,1891, and March 3,1905, are under the protection of the Federal Government, and the lessee is a Federal instrumentality, and the State cannot, therefore, tax its interest in the leases either directly, or as the leases are represented by the capital stock of the corporation owning them. Choctaw & Gulf R. R. v. Harrison, 235 U. S. 292.</p> <p>43 Oklahoma, 307, reversed.</p>