Dollar Savings Bank v. United States/Opinion of the Court

The facts found by the special verdict are that the plaintiff in error is a banking institution created by the laws of the State of Pennsylvania, without stockholders or capital stock, and doing the business of receiving deposits to be loaned or invested for the sole benefit of its depositors; that the charter authorizes the retention of a contingent fund accumulated from the earnings to the extent of ten per centum of its deposits for the security of its depositors; that the bank has earned and added to the said contingent fund, or undistributed sum, from July 13th, 1866, to December 31st, 1870, one hundred and seven thousand dollars; and that such earnings were carried to and added to said contingent or undistributed fund semi-annually, on the first days of January and July in each year.

Upon this state of facts, the first question presented is whether the act of Congress of July 13th, 1866, which was an amendment to the Internal Revenue law, authorizes the levy and collection of a tax upon the accumulated earnings carried to the contingent fund. It is very plain that the first intent of the act was to impose a tax upon all the earnings, income, or gains, of the institutions mentioned therein. The language of its one hundred and twentieth section is, 'There shall be levied and collected a tax of five per centum on all dividends in scrip or money thereafter declared due, whenever and wherever the same shall be payable to stockholders, policy-holders, or depositors, or parties whatsoever, including non-residents, whether citizens or aliens, as part of the earnings, income, or gains of any bank, trust company, savings institution, and of any fire, marine, life, inland insurance company, either stock or mutual, under whatever name or style known or called in the United States or Territories, whether specially incorporated or existing under general laws; and on all undistributed sum or sums made and added during the year to their surplus or contingent funds.' This tax the banks, trust companies, savings institutions, and insurance companies are required to pay, and they are authorized to deduct it from all payments made on account of any dividends or sums of money that may be due and payable as aforesaid. It is, however, only so much of the tax as is levied upon dividends or sums of money due and payable to stockholders, policy-holders, or depositors, &c., which they are authorized to deduct. Thus it appears the tax is laid upon two subjects,-the one dividends or sums due and payable, and the other the undistributed surplus of gains or earnings carried to a surplus or contingent fund. These subjects, though together making up the entire net earnings, are distinct from each other; and they are thus treated throughout the section as well as throughout other sections of the act. If the portion of the act which we have quoted were all, it would not admit of a doubt that both these subjects-the dividends, or annual or semi-annual payments, and the sums added to the contingent fund-are made taxable.

It is argued, however, that savings institutions were relieved by the proviso to the section. That, of course, is to be construed in connection with the section of which it is a part, and it is substantially an exception. It takes out of the operation of the body of the enactment that which otherwise would be within it. It restrains the generality of the previous provisions. Its language is: 'Provided that the tax upon dividends of life insurance companies shall not be deemed due until such dividends are payable; nor shall the portion of premiums returned by mutual life insurance companies, nor the annual or semi-annual interest allowed or paid to the depositors in savings banks or savings institutions be considered as dividends.' But so far as it relates to savings banks, the only subject of the proviso is the annual or semi-annual interest allowed or paid to the depositors. It makes no reference to the undistributed surplus which may be carried to a surplus fund. That it leaves as it was in the body of the section, subject to the tax therein imposed. And to us it appears quite plain that such was the intention of Congress. Had it been the purpose to exempt savings banks from liability to pay the tax on both the interest paid to its depositors and on all undistributed sums carried to the surplus fund, the plain mode of expressing such a purpose was to say in the proviso that such banks should be excepted from the operation of the section. If such was the purpose, why except them expressly from the operation of a part of the section only? Why take out one subject of taxation specifically, and leave the other unmentioned? And still more. If, as the plaintiff in error contends, it was intended that savings banks should pay no tax on either of the two subjects mentioned in the body of the section, why were such banks mentioned in the section at all? The broad construction of the proviso contended for makes it plainly repugnant to the body of the act, and it is, therefore, inadmissible.

Our attention has been called to the fact that in 1867, and again in 1870, the commissioners of internal revenue construed the proviso as exempting savings institutions from the tax upon all sums added to their surplus or contingent funds, and that the act of Congress of July 14th, 1870, which reduced internal taxation, employed substantially the same language respecting savings banks as that contained in the act of 1866. In view of this, the plaintiffs in error argue that Congress required the commissioner to prescribe what returns savings banks should make; that this made it his duty to put a construction on the law; that he did so, and held that such institutions were not required to return undistributed earnings carried to a surplus fund, and that after this practical construction had been made and acted upon more than three years, Congress re-enacted the tax, reduced in amount, in the same words. Hence, it is inferred, the construction given by the commissioner was adopted. It is, doubtless, a rule that when a judicial construction has been given to a statute, the re-enactment of the statute is generally held to be in effect a legislative adoption of that construction. This, however, can only be when the statute is capable of the construction given to it, and when that construction has become a settled rule of conduct. The rule, we think, is in applicable to this case. In the first place, the decisions of the internal revenue commissioner can hardly be denominated judicial constructions. That officer was not required by the law to prescribe what returns savings banks were required to make. That was prescribed by the act of Gongress itself, and he had no power to dispense with the requisition. There is, therefore, no presumption that his decisions were brought to the knowledge of Congress when the act of 1870 was passed. And again, the construction he gave is an impossible one, for, as we have seen, it makes the proviso plainly repugnant to the body of the section.

We are constrained, then, to hold that the act of Congress does impose upon the plaintiffs in error the tax to recover which the present suit was brought.

The second error assigned is that the Circuit Court erred in holding that an action of debt is maintainable in that court for the recovery of the taxes.

We do not perceive that the question presented by this assignment was raised or even mentioned in the court below, and it is not clear that it may first be raised here. But if it may, the answer must be that the taxes may be recovered in an action of debt brought in the Circuit Court.

The argument in support of the assignment of error is that the United States has no common law; that the thirty-fourth section of the Judiciary Act enacts that the laws of the several States shall be the rules of decision in the trial of actions at common law, of which debt is one; that the act of Congress which imposes the tax on savings banks provides a special remedy for its assessment and collection, and that it is a principle of the common law of Pennsylvania, that when a statute creates a right and provides a particular remedy by which that right may be enforced, no other remedy than that afforded by the statute can be used.

It must be conceded that in the section of the act, which required savings banks to pay the tax, they are also required to render to the assessor or assistant assessor a list of the amount of taxes with a declaration under oath attached thereto, on or before the 10th day of the month following that in which any dividends or sums of money may be due and payable, and for any default in rendering such a list they are liable to a penalty. The act also declares that 'in case of any default in making or rendering said list or return, or any default in the payment of the tax as required, or any part thereof, the assessment and collection of the tax and penalty shall be in accordance with the general provisions of law in other cases of neglect and refusal.' What those general provisions are may be seen in other sections of the act which prescribe assessments, delivery thereof to the collectors, and distraint if necessary.

It must also be conceded to be a rule of the common law in England, as it is in Pennsylvania and many of the other States, that where a statute creates a right and provides a particular remedy for its enforcement, the remedy is generally exclusive of all common-law remedies.

But it is important to notice upon what the rule is founded. The reason of the rule is that the statute, by providing a particular remedy, manifests an intention to prohibit other remedies, and the rule, therefore, rests upon a presumed statutory prohibition. It applies and it is enforced when any one to whom the statute is a rule of conduct seeks redress for a civil wrong. He is confined to the remedy pointed out in the statute, for he is forbidden to make use of any other. But by the Internal Revenue law, the United States are not prohibited from adopting any remedies for the recovery of a debt due to them which are known to the laws of Pennsylvania. The prohibitions, if any, either express or implied, contained in the enactment of 1866, are for others, not for the government. They may be obligatory upon tax collectors. They may prevent any suit at law by such officers or agents. But they are not rules for the conduct of the State. It is a familiar principle that the King is not bound by any act of Parliament unless he be named therein by special and particular words. The most general words that can be devised (for example, any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate) affect not him in the least, if they may tend to restrain or diminish any of his rights and interests. He may even take the benefit of any particular act, though not named. The rule thus settled respecting the British Crown is equally applicable to this government, and it has been applied frequently in the different States, and practically in the Federal courts. It may be consiered as settled that so much of the royal prerogatives as belonged to the King in his capacity of parens patriae, or universal trustee, enters as much into our political state as it does into the principles of the British constitution.

It must, then, be concluded that the government is not prohibited by anything contained in the act of 1866 from employing ploying any common-law remedy for the collection of its dues. The reason for the rule which denies to others the use of any other than the statutory remedy is wanting, therefore, in applicability of the government, and the rule itself must not be extended beyond its reason. And we do not find that either in England or in Pennsylvania it has been held to be applicable. On the contrary, in England informations of debt, and exchequer informations for discovery and account, to recover duties on importations, have been of frequent occurrence, though the acts of Parliament have provided a different remedy for enforcing the payment. Numerous such cases are reported in Bunbury's Reports. And in United States v. Lyman, Judge Story held that debt might be maintained in the Circuit Court for Massachusetts to recover duties upon imported goods; a doctrine reaserted by this court in Meredith v. United States.

But all this is superfluous, for the act of Congress authorizes suits at law to recover unpaid taxes. It enacts as follows: 'And taxes may be sued for and recovered, in the name of the United States, in any proper form of action, before any Circuit or District Court of the United States for the district in which the liability for such tax may have been or may be incurred, or where the party from whom such tax is due may reside at the time of the commencement of said action.'

Nor is there anything in the objection that the taxes for which judgment has been recovered in this case had not been assessed. No other assessment than that made by the statute was necessary to determine the extent of the bank's liability. An assessment is only determining the value of the thing taxed, and the amount of the tax required of each individual. It may be made by designated officers or by the law itself. In the present case the statute required every savings bank to pay a tax of five per cent. on all undistributed earnings made, or added during the year to their contingent funds. There was no occasion or room for any other assessment. This was a charge of a certain sum upon the bank, and without more it made the bank a debtor.

We think, therefore, the second assignment of error cannot by sustained.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.

Mr. Justice BRADLEY, with whom concurred Mr. Justice FIELD, dissenting: