This is a writ of error to revise an order dismissing a writ of
The statute in question levies a tax of two cents on each hundred dollars of face value of stock, for every sale or agreement to sell the same, etc.; to be paid by affixing and cancelling stamps for the requisite amount to the books of the company, the stock certificate, or a memorandum required in certain cases. Failure to pay the tax is made a misdemeanor punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both. There is also a civil penalty attached. The petition for the writ sets up only the Fourteenth Amendment, as we have mentioned, but both sides have argued the case under the commerce clause of the Constitution, Art. I, section 8, as well, and we shall say a few words on that aspect of the question.
It is true that a very similar stamp act of the United States, the act of June 13, 1898, c. 448, § 25, Schedule A, 30 Stat. 448, 458, was upheld in Thomas v. United States, 192 U.S. 363. But it is argued that different considerations apply to the States and the tax is said to be bad under the Fourteenth Amendment
The objection did not take this very broad form to be sure. But it was said that there was no basis for the separation of sales of stock from sales of other kinds of personal property, for instance, especially, bonds of the same or other companies. But bonds in most cases pass by delivery and a stamp tax hardly could be enforced. See further, Nicol v. Ames, 173 U.S. 509, 522, 523. In Otis v. Parker, 187 U.S. 606, practical grounds were recognized as sufficient to warrant a prohibition, which did not apply to sales of other property, of sales of stock on margin, although this same argument was pressed with great force. A fortiori do they warrant a tax on sales, which is not intended to discriminate against or to discourage them, but simply to collect a revenue for the benefit of the whole community in a convenient way.
It is urged further that a tax on sales is really a tax on property, and that therefore the act, as applied to the shares of a foreign corporation owned by non-residents, is a taking of property without due process of law. Union Refrigerator Transit Co. v. Kentucky, 199 U.S. 194. This argument presses the expressions in Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, 444; Fairbank v. United States, 181 U.S. 283, and intervening cases,
Yet another ground on which the owners of stock are said to be deprived of their property without due process of law is the adoption of the face value of the shares as the basis of the tax. One of the stocks was worth thirty dollars and seventy-five cents a share of the face value of one hundred dollars, the other one hundred and seventy-two dollars. The inequality of the tax, so far as actual values are concerned, is manifest. But, here again equality in this sense has to yield to practical considerations and usage. There must be a fixed and indisputable mode of ascertaining a stamp tax. In another sense, moreover, there is equality. When the taxes on two sales are equal the same number of shares is sold in each case; that is to say, the same privilege is used to the same extent. Valuation is not the only thing to be considered. As was pointed out by the Court of Appeals, the familiar stamp tax of two cents on checks, irrespective of amount, the poll tax of a fixed sum, irrespective of income or earning capacity, and many others, illustrate the
The other ground of attack is that the act is an interference with commerce among the several States. Cases were imagined, which, it was said, would fall within the statute, and yet would be cases of such commerce; and it was argued that if the act embraced any such cases it was void as to them, and, if void as to them, void altogether, on a principle often stated. United States v. Ju Toy, 198 U.S. 253, 262. That the act is void as to transactions in commerce between the States, if it applies to them, is thought to be shown by the decisions concerning ordinances requiring a license fee from drummers, so called, and the like. Robbins v. Shelby County Taxing District, 120 U.S. 489; Stockard v. Morgan, 185 U.S. 27; Rearick v. Pennsylvania, 203 U.S. 507.
But there is a point beyond which this court does not consider arguments of this sort for the purpose of invalidating the tax laws of a State on constitutional grounds. This limit has been fixed in many cases. It is that unless the party setting up the unconstitutionality of the state law belongs to the class for whose sake the constitutional protection is given, or the class primarily protected, this court does not listen to his objections, and will not go into imaginary cases, notwithstanding the seeming logic of the position that it must do so, because if for any reason, or as against any class embraced, the law is unconstitutional, it is void as to all. Supervisors v. Stanley, 105 U.S. 305, 311; Clark v. Kansas City, 176 U.S. 114, 118; Lampasas v. Bell, 180 U.S. 276, 283, 284; Cronin v. Adams, 192 U.S. 108, 114. If the law is valid when confined to the
Whatever the reason, the decisions are clear, and it was because of them that it was inquired so carefully in the drummer cases whether the party concerned was himself engaged in commerce between the States. Stockard v. Morgan, 185 U.S. 27, 30, 35, 36; Caldwell v. North Carolina, 187 U.S. 622; Rearick v. Pennsylvania, 203 U.S. 507. Therefore we begin with the same inquiry in this case, and it is plain that we can get no farther. There is not a shadow of a ground for calling the transaction described such commerce. The communications between the parties were not between different States, as in Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Texas, 105 U.S. 460, and the bargain did not contemplate or induce the transport of property from one State to another, as in the drummer cases. Rearick v. Pennsylvania, supra. The bargain was not affected in any way, legally or practically, by the fact that the parties happened to have come from another State before they made it. It does not appear that the petitioner came into New York to sell his stock, as it was put on his behalf. It appears only that he sold after coming into the State. But we are far from implying that it would have made any difference if he had come to New York with the supposed intent before any bargain was made.
It is said that the property sold was not within the State. The immediate object of sale was the certificate of stock present in New York. That document was more than evidence, it was a constituent of title. No doubt, in a more remote sense, the object was the membership or share which the certificate conferred or made attainable. More remotely still it was an
Order affirmed.
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