Mayor of Charleston v. State ex rel. Adger

Citations

• 29 S.C.L. 719

Syllabus

<p>1. The taxing power of the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Charleston is confined, under the City Charter of 1783 and the Act of 1836, 1st. To the inhabitants of the City at discretion. 2nd. To the taxable property within the City of non-residents; and 3rd. To the income of non-residents from professions carried on in the City. Therefore, held that an assessment laid by an Ordinance of the Mayor and Aldermen of the City, upon the carriage, horses and driver, of a citizen not residing within the corporate limits of the same, but carrying on the business of a Factor and Commission Merchant within the City, and which property so assessed he kept without the City, and used in going to and from his place of business, is not authorized, either under the powers conferred by the Charter or the Act of 1836.</p> <p>2. Where a non-resident of the City of Charleston places his slave expressly under the Police regulations of the City, by purchasing a Badge to authorize him to ply for work within the City regulations, such slave becomes taxable property within the City, in the proper sense of those terms of the Charter of 1783, notwithstanding the rule of the domicil and its general application to personal property. But the tax laid on such slave is not to exceed the general tax on the slaves of the inhabitants of the City.</p>