Board of Com'rs v. Indian Terr. Illuminating Oil Co.

1932 OK 396, 14 P.2d 929, 159 Okla. 6, 1932 Okla. LEXIS 540
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedMay 17, 1932
Docket20878
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 1932 OK 396 (Board of Com'rs v. Indian Terr. Illuminating Oil Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Board of Com'rs v. Indian Terr. Illuminating Oil Co., 1932 OK 396, 14 P.2d 929, 159 Okla. 6, 1932 Okla. LEXIS 540 (Okla. 1932).

Opinion

KORNEGAY, J.

This is a suit to review the action of the district court of Payne county, requiring the board of county commissioners to strike from .the list of assessed property of the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company, for the year 1928, some oil produced from a restricted allotment in Seminole county, the judgment being rendered on ¡the 20th of August, 1929. The journal entry of judgment embraces three pages of the record, but the matters were simplified, largely by an agreed statement of facts, and the brief of the plaintiff in error states that the sole question in the case is whether or not oil tha¡t was produced in Seminole county by the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company sometime prior to the 1st of January, 1928, under a lease on restricted Indian land, and which was in storage in Payne county in January, 1928, mixed with other oil, was subject to taxation as property in Payne county for that year, and if so, has the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company proceeded in ithe manner prescribed by law for the purpose of correcting the assessment of said property for taxation on that property in that county during that year?

Jusit when this oil was produced, the record is not explicit on. The basis of the decision was that the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company was acting as a governmental agency, and the order was made that the county commissioners should issue a certificate of error, taking from the tax roll in school district No. 102, Eagle township', the amount of this oil, $169,386, and district No. 91, the amount of $214,322, the remainder of the judgment providing the relief awarded to the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company in the way of refund of taxes, etc.

The county commissioners refused to take this off.of the assessment list, and the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company appealed to 'the district court with the results abbve set out. It appears to us in this ease that this oil being a part of the property of the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company, and having been moved from the wells where produced and mingled with other oil, had become a part of the mass of property of Payne county, and was subject to ad valorem tax just as the farmers’ horses, and the oil in storage that was produced from wells of o¡ther citizens of the state.

Several cases are cited from this court and other courts, and especially the Supreme Court of the United States, from which ¡the deduction is made by the oil company that it could escape taxation during the year 1928 on this oil on account of the way it had been produced. The point is made that a full-blood Indian was a ward of the United States, and therefore in developing his land for oil, the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company became the United States agent, and that what it got ou,t of it was free from taxation imposed and required by the state for its support.

We think this position ignores the rights of the s¡tate of Oklahoma and its history. Some of the citizens of the state are classed as wards of the United .States, as a foundation for the deduction tha¡t the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company does not have to pay taxes upon its personal property, that at one time was in the ground, that had been allotted to a full-blood Indian. If the Indian is a ward of the United States, when one takes the Enabling Act of 1906 and reads it, it would appear that the state of Oklahoma was the child of the United States. It is necessary that it have revenue as a means of performing its functions, and to say that the United States government has saved the oil in question from the taxing power of the state, would scarcely agree with the ideas of allowing the state to function and get the means to function, when required to afford to the owner of the land and the lessee the equal protection of the law, and furnish police protection for the property.

It also would scarcely be consistent with the duty of the United States towards the other Indians of the state, and towards the other taxpayer® of the state. By virtue of the Enabling Act, all Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes became citizens of the state, entitled to its protection and subject to its laws in large measure, and if we recognize that expenses of government are largely drawn from taxation, which is assessed against real estate, unless there is an overwhelming reason for it, we ought *8 no¡t to hold that property derived by citizens of the state and other states, by virtue of boring into the ground and getting oil and bringing it to the surface and putting it into' the channels of commerce, is exempt from tax.

By the terms of ¡the Enabling Act, certain restrictions were thrown around the people of the state, but when one analyzes: the Constitution of ¡the United States, and finds the provisions about admitting states, and examines the case of Coyle v. Smith, 55 L. Ed. 855, decided by th© Supreme Court of the United States, holding invalid the limitation sought to be imposed on the people of the state of Oklahoma as to the location of its capitol, it! is scarcely consisteAt to say that the taxing power of the state in this case does noti extend to the oil that is here involved, in view of its character and location and ownership at the time of the tax assessment.

The case of Jaybird Mining Co. v. Weir, 271 U. S. 600, 70 L. Ed. 1113, decided by ¡the Supreme Court of the United States, is relied upon by the oil company as exempting it from taxation. When one analyzes the cases that are relied upon in that case for the exemption there allowed, he will find that they all go back to the original case of Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf Ry. Co. v. Harrison, 235 U. S, 292, 59 L. Ed. 234. The opinion says: “The lessee is an agency or instrumentality employed by the government for the development and use of the restricted land and to mine ores therefrom for the benefit of its Indian wards, ” and the case of Choctaw, Ofela. & Gulf Ry. Co. v. Harrison, cited above, is cited and relied on. In the Harrison Case it was held that the tax complained of was an occupational tax, and the leases in that case were tribal leases to start with, and the property was still common Indian property, and the royalties were required to be paid into the Treasury of the United States, and the matter was subject from time to time to regulation by government. It was there clearly held that calling it a substitute property tax would not help the matter, and in the body of the opinion we find the following:

“Neither state courts nor Legislatures, by giving a tax a particular name, or by the use of some form of words, can take away our duty to consider its real nature and effect. Galveston. H. & S. A. R. Co. v. Texas, 210 U. S. 217, 227, 52 L. Ed. 1031, 1037, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 638.

“It is unnecessary to consider the power of the state of Oklahoma to treat coals dug from mines operated by the appellant as other personalty, and to subject them to a uniform ad valorem tax, for it seems to us clear that the act of 1908 provided for no such imposition. Its very language imposes a ‘gross revenue tax which shall be in addition to the taxes levied and collected upon an ad valorem basis.’ We cannot, therefore, conclude that the gross receipts were intended merely to represent the measure of the value of property liable to a general assessment — provision is made for determining .that upon a different basis. Meyer v. Wells, E.

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1932 OK 396, 14 P.2d 929, 159 Okla. 6, 1932 Okla. LEXIS 540, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/board-of-comrs-v-indian-terr-illuminating-oil-co-okla-1932.