United States v. Pressy

27 F. Cas. 616, 1 Low. 319

• Court: District Court, D. Massachusetts
• Decided: April 15, 1869
• Status: Published

Opinion

LOWELL, District Judge,

ruled that if the defendant had been guilty only of a neglect or refusal to pay his tax after he had ceased to carry on the business, he was not, for that alone, liable to indictment under the section cited. That the offence described in the law was the carrying on a trade or business without payment of a tax, and if the defendant, when he carried on the business before his tax was levied, had no intent to defraud the government, he could not be lawfully convicted. His application to be assessed was all that he could do, or was bound to do, until the bill was rendered. So that, while many defendants had been rightly convicted under this section who had never been assessed for a tax, because the failure to assess them arose out of their own wrong in not making application to the assessor, and therefore they could not be heard to object the want of assessment; yet this stringent penalty was not intended for delinquent taxpayers merely as such, if they had been guilty of no act or omission at the time they carried on their business. The government officers, in adopting what appeared to be a reasonable and perhaps necessary practice of giving credit for the tax for twenty days while their lists were preparing, did not thereby expose all tradesmen to indictment who took advantage of that credit.

The district attorney declined to go to the jury on the question of intent, and the defendant was acquitted.