Meyer v. Wells, Fargo & Co.

Citations

• 223 U.S. 298
• 32 S. Ct. 218
• 56 L. Ed. 445
• 1912 U.S. LEXIS 2235

Syllabus

<p>In estimating for taxation the proportion of income of a corporation doing interstate business, a State cannot include income from investments in bonds and lands outside of the State. Fargo v. Hart, 193 U. S. 490.</p> <p>The Oklahoma tax on gross revénue of corporations of 1910, as far as it affects express companies, is not a property tax but a tax on all revenue, including that received from interstate commerce, and as such is an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce. Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Ry. Co. v. Texas, 210 U. S. 217.</p> <p>Where a state statuté requires that a corporation doing both interstate and intrastate business return its gross receipts from ajl sources, the taxing feature of the statute cannot be construed as relating -only to receipts from intrastate commerce, and sustained separately in that respect.</p> <p>Complainant in an equity suit to restrain the collection of a state tax, on gross receipts, on the ground that the aet'is unconstitutional because it includes receipts from interstate commerce, is not bound, in order to maintain the bill, to tender so much as would have fallen on intrastate receipts. Peopled Bank v. Marye, 191 U. S. 272, distinguished. ‘</p> <p>The court cannot, reshape a taxing statute which includes elements beyond the State’s power of taxátion simply because it embraces elements that it might have reached had the statute been drawn with a different measure and intent.</p>