Wilcox v. United States

12 Ct. Cl. 495
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedDecember 15, 1876
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 12 Ct. Cl. 495 (Wilcox v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wilcox v. United States, 12 Ct. Cl. 495 (cc 1876).

Opinion

Richardson, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

The only question of law arising upon the findings in this case is, which of two collectors of internal revenue is entitled to commissions on one-half the tax collected on manufactured tobacco removed and transported without the payment of tax from the manufactories in one district to export bonded warehouses in another district, and withdrawn for consumption or sale upon payment of the taxes thereon to the collector of the latter district, as the law stood after the Act July 20,1868, and before the passage of the Act June 6,1872; there being no controversy as to who was entitled to commissions on the other half, which were allowed to the collector in the warehouse district.

By the Act June 30, 1864, (13 Stat. L., 245, 263, §§ 61, 90, chap. 173,) manufactured tobacco and other articles might be transferred without payment of duty directly from the place of manufacture to a bonded warehouse established in conformity with law and Treasury regulations, under such rules and regulations and upon the execution of such transportation bonds as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe, * * * and [500]*500withdrawn therefrom for consumption on payment of the duty, or removed for export to a foreign country without payment of duty.” * * *

Under this act the Commissioner made regulations, among others, for the withdrawal of tobacco, as well as spirits and other articles to which the same act applied, from the bonded warehouses for consumption, requiring the taxes due thereon to be paid to the. collector of the district in which the warehouses are situated.

The same act, in section 25, (13 Stat. L., 231,) allowed to collectors of internal revenue a salary and certain commissions on the amount of money collected, paid over, and accounted for by them, respectively, as taxes.

This gave to collectors in the districts where bonde’d warehouses were established all the commissions on taxes collected on manufactured tobacco, as well as spirits and other articles withdrawn from said warehouses for consumption, and nothing to the collectors of the districts in which the tobacco had been manufactured and from which it had been shipped.

Subsequently, by the Act July 13, 1866, (14 Stat. L,, 105, 106, § 9, ch.'184,) as amended by the Act March 2,1867, (14 Stat. L., 473, § 9, ch. 169,) the following proviso was enacted:

“Provided,.that in calculating the commissions of assessors and collectors of internal revenue in districts whence cotton or distilled spirits or other articles are. shipped in bond to be sold in another district, one-half of the amount of tax received on the quantity’of cotton or spirits, or other articles so shipped, shall be added to the amount on which the commissions of such assessors and collectors are calculated.”

Under this provision the commissions on spirits, tobacco, and other articles manufactured in one collection district and shipped in bond for consumption or to he sold in another district and the tax paid there, were divided equally between the collectors of the two districts, or, more strictly speaking, one-half of the amount of taxes received in such cases was added to the respective accounts of.such collectors, for the purpose of calculating their commissions, which might be of different percentage, according to the full amount of all their collections.

. The Act July 20,1868, (15 Stat. L., 157, §§ 73, 74, ch. 186,) made new provisions in,relation to the removal of manufactured tobacco and snuff from the manufactories, directing the Com[501]*501missioner to designate and establish at different ports of entry-bonded warehouses for the storage of manufactured tobacco and snuff in bond intended for exportation, and requiring all such articles intended for export, and removed to another district for that purpose, to be transported to such export bonded warehouses, and also prohibiting the removal of the same from such warehouses except for export or after the tax has been paid thereon.”

The Commissioner of Internal Revenue construed these provisions as superseding those of previous acts, and as prescribing the only method by which manufactured tobacco could be taken from the manufactory without the payment of tax and transported to bonded warehouses in other districts, but as still giving the owner the right to remove it from those warehouses for consumption upon paying the tax thereon to the collector in the district where it was stored, substantially in the same manner as it could have been removed under the former acts; and he made his regulations and instructions accordingly.

The only practical changes made by the law of 1868 in relation to the removal of manufactured tobacco from the district where manufactured to other districts where there were bonded warehouses, and the seruoval therefrom for sale or consumption, were these: It substituted export bonded warehouses for internal-revenue bonded warehouses, and required the manufacturer to affix to each package before leaving the manufactory a stamp indicating that the tobacco was intended for export. The method of transfer, giving bond, removal for sale or consumption, and payment of tax upon such removal, were substantially the same under both laws.

For the defendants, in behalf of the collectors in the warehouse districts, it is contended that as the proviso in the act of 1866 which we have cited, as amended, specified only “articles shipped in bond to be sold in another district” therefore, after the passage of the act of 1868 superseding the then existing provisions for the shipment of tobacco in bond to be sold in another district, and substituting’ therefor provisions for the shipment only upon the declared intention of the owner that it was for export, as evidenced by a stamp thereon, there could be nothing for the proviso to operate upon, and that the taxes ■collected by a collector in the district where export bonded warehouses were situated upon tobacco shipped thereto from [502]*502manufactories in other districts, with stamps on the packages indicating that it was intended for export, and withdrawn for sale or consumption, were not taxes “on articles shipped to be sold in another district.”

In our opinion this would be a too restricted application of the proviso, or a too extensive application of the effect of the act of 1868, beyond the intention of Congress, and outside of the matters designed to be covered or affected by that act.

In the construction of several statutes on the same general subject, passed at different dates and by successive legislatures, without express repeal of former provisions, all parts of each must retain their force and effect except where it is apparent that by the later acts substantial changes were intended, without relying upon artistic adaptation of the language of all parts to the substantial alterations, or raising incidental changes-through imperfect or incomplete connections between the different statutes, clearly not contemplated by the legislators, and not within the scope of the particular matters considered by them. What is to be determined is the will of the legislature, and that will as expressed in the latest act is paramount. But-on all matters in which the will of the latest legislature has not been clearly manifested .that of all former legislatures must stand.

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