State v. Anglo-Chilean Nitrate Sales Corporation

142 So. 87, 225 Ala. 141, 1932 Ala. LEXIS 369
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedMay 12, 1932
Docket3 Div. 996.
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 142 So. 87 (State v. Anglo-Chilean Nitrate Sales Corporation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Anglo-Chilean Nitrate Sales Corporation, 142 So. 87, 225 Ala. 141, 1932 Ala. LEXIS 369 (Ala. 1932).

Opinion

*144 GARDNER, J.

The appeal is by the state from the decree of the equity court overturning the filial assessment of a franchise tax of the Anglo-Chilean Nitrate Sales Corporation, a foreign corporation, for the year 1930, entered by the tax commission of this state. The assessment was based upon the valuation of the capital employed within the state, as authorized by our statute passed in obedience to the mandate of our Constitution. Gen. Acts 1927, p. 176; section 232, Constitution of Alabama; Louisville & N. R, R. Co. v. State, 201 Ala. 317, 78 So. 93; Ellis v. Handley, 214 Ala. 539, 108 So. 343; Kansas City, M. & B. R. R. Co. v. Stiles, 182 Ala. 138, 62 So. 734; Louisville & N. R. R. Co. v. State, 248 U. S. 533, 39 S. Ct. 18, 63 L. Ed. 406.

The cause was tried in the court below upon -an agreed statement of facts which appears in the report of the case.

The corporation defended upon the theory, evidently, accepted by the chancellor, that the basis of the assessment was the valuation of the nitrate imported from Chile, stored.in a public warehouse in Mobile, Ala., in the original packages or sacks of one hundred pounds each, and as such constituted imports, immune from state taxation under the provisions of our Federal Constitution, article 1, § 10, cl. 2, as construed in Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, 6 L. Ed. 678; Cook v. Pennsylvania, 97 U. S. 566, 24 L. Ed. 1015; May v. New Orleans, 178 U. S. 496, 20 S. Ct. 976, 44 L. Ed. 1165.

■ The defendant duly qualified as a foreign corporation to do business in this state, appointed a resident agent, and that it actually engaged in business in Alabama by selling its nitrate through a salesman both within and without the state appears as an uncontroverted fact. It seeks to be relieved from this franchise tax solely upon the theory the imported nitrate, the sale of which constituted* its business, was immune from state taxation.

But we think the argument stresses too far the inhibition against state taxation of imports found in our Federal Constitution and overlooks the nature of the tax here in question. The Federal Constitution, in the respect here pertinent, is that “no State shall, without the 'Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection Laws.” The franchise tax here imposed applies alike to all foreign corporations engaged in business in this state. It makes no reference to imports, which are here involved solely because of the business in which the corporation was engaged. The following familiar general principle of law is not questioned: “It must be regarded as finally settled by frequent decisions of this court that, subject to certain limitations as respects interstate and foreign commerce, a state may impose such conditions upon permitting a foreign corporation to do business within its limits as it may judge expedient, and that it may make the grant of privilege dependent upon the payment of a specific license tax, or a sum proportioned to the amount of its capital used within the state.” New York v. Roberts, 171 U. S. 658, 19 S. Ct. 58, 59, 43 L. Ed. 323. And in Horn Silver Mining Co. v. New York, 143 U. S. 305, 12 S. Ct. 403, 404, 36 L. Ed. 164, the opinion quotes from the early case of Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, 19 L. Ed. 357, as follows: “Having no absolute right of recognition in other states, but depending for such recognition and the enforcement of its contracts upon their assent, it follows, as a matter of course, that such assent may be granted upon such terms and conditions as those states may think proper to impose. They may exclude the foreign- corporation entirely, they may restrict its business to particular Realities, or they may exact such security for the performance of its contracts with their citizens as, in their judgment, will best promote the public interest. The whole matter rests in their discretion.”

And, after stating that this doctrine is .settled by the decisions and may be considered at rest, the opinion proceeds: “Only two exceptions or qualifications have been attached to it in all the numerous adjudications in which the subject has been considered, since the judgment of this court was announced more than a half century ago in Bank [of Augusta] v. Earle, 13 Pet. 519 [10 L. Ed. 274], One of these qualifications is that the state cannot exclude from its limits a corporation engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, established by the decision in Pensacola Telegraph Co. v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 96 U. S. 1, 12 [24 L. Ed. 708], The other limitation on the power of the state is where the corporation is in the employ of the general government. * * * Having the absolute power of excluding the foreign corporation, the state may, of, course, impose such conditions upon permitting the corporation to do business within its limits as it may judge expedient ; and it may make the grant or privilege dependent upon the payment of a specific license tax, or a sum proportioned to the amount of its capital.”

It has also become equally as well settled that an excise tax may properly be measured by tax immune property. In discussing this question the court in Home Ins. *145 Co. v. New York, 134 U. S. 594, 10 S. Ct. 593, 595, 33 L. Ed. 1025, used the following expressions: “The validity of the tax can in no way be dependent upon the mode which the state may deem fit to adopt in fixing the amount for any year which it will exact for the franchise. No constitutional objection lies in the way of a legislative body prescribing any mode of measurement to determine the amount it will charge for the privileges it bestows. It may well seek in this way to increase its revenue to the extent to which it has been cut off by exemption of other property from taxation. * * * From the very nature of the tax, being laid upon a franchise given by the state, and revocable at pleasure, it cannot be affected in any way by the character of the property in which its capital stock is invested.”

This principle was fully recognized and given application in the recent case of Educational Films Corporation v. Ward, 282 U. S. 379, 51 S. Ct. 170, 171, 75 L. Ed. 400. There the corporation challenged the franchise tax assessed against it so far as it was measured by the amount of royalties received from copyrights which were immune from state taxation. The court denying relief, considered the question answered in Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., 220 U. S. 107, 31 S. Ct. 342, 353, 55 L. Ed. 389, Ann. Cas.

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142 So. 87, 225 Ala. 141, 1932 Ala. LEXIS 369, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-anglo-chilean-nitrate-sales-corporation-ala-1932.