New Jersey Steamboat Company v. The Collector/Opinion of the Court

ERROR to the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York.

The New Jersey Steamboat Company had a night-line of steamboats which ran between New York and Albany, and which paid tonnage duty in conformity with the laws of the United States. The boats were furnished with berths and state-rooms. But it was not obligatory on passengers going on the boats to take either. They might pay for a passage only, that is to say pay for the 'bare right' to be on the boat, while it was going from one place to the other, in which case they would have to sit up all night; or they might pay in addition to the passage-money a certain sum, in which case they had the privilege to occupy a berth or a state-room. The accounts of passage-money received were kept distinct from those of money received for berths or state-rooms.

In this state of things, the collector of the United States at New York, asserting that he was justified by the ninth section of an act of Congress of July 13th, 1866, hereinafter set forth, demanded from the company the sum of $7972.66, which he alleged to be a tax assessed at the rate of 2 1/2 per cent. on the company's 'gross receipts from passengers' during the summer of 1869.

For the transportation of passengers (passage-money),. $4831

For berths or state-rooms, ........ 3140