Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/709

 during the period in question, and that the profits shown by their books during that period, on which tax is claimed, are fully wiped out by certain items charged to profit and loss in 1869.

The court disposed of the first defence as follows: An action of debt may be maintained to recover taxes, without an assessment, where the statute describes the subject of the taxes and fixes the rates so that the amount may be ascertained by evidence. Dollar Savings Bank v. U. S. 19 Wall. 227; King v. U. S. 99 U. S. 229; The U. S. v. S. J. Tilden, 24 Int. Rev. Rec. 99. Nor will the fact that an assessment has been made and paid be a bar to a suit for the recovery of an amount claimed to be due over and above the amount which has been assessed and paid. U. S. v. Hazard, 22 Int. Rev. Rec. 309; U. S. v. S. J. Tilden, 24 Int. Rev. Rec. 99.

The tax imposed by section 122 of the statute, although substantially a tax upon the stockholder, so far as its effects and results are concerned, yet the obligation to pay the tax, is by this section imposed upon the corporation, and this would seem to be the view entertained by the supreme court of the United States in the Michigan Central R. Co. v. Slack, Collector, 26 Int. Rev. Rec. 60.

This being an action against the corporation for taxes imposed by statute, and not upon an assessment for taxes, the limitation of 15 months within which an assessment may be made does not apply; and congress not having fixed a time within which an action of this character shall be brought, “no laches can be imputed to the government, and against it no time can run so as to bar its rights.” The U. S. v. Thompson, 98 U. S. 486; The U. S. v. Kirkpatrick, 9 Wheat.; The U. S. v. Williams, 5 McLean, 133.

It is not necessary now to consider the effect of the lease by the defendant to the Pennsylvania Central & St. Louis Railway and the Pennsylvania Railroad Company further than to say that such lease did not dissolve the corporation, and it may still be sued for liabilities incurred prior to such lease. But whether the property can be subjected to the