Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/882

 870 FEDERAL REPORTER. �I do noi contend that a court of equity can itself levy a tax. I agree it cannot, and so this court lias decided. Rees v. Watertown, 19 Wall, supra. The argument which bas been submitted to prove that the circuit court bas no such power ia quite unnecessary. It is inapplicable to the case we have in hand. The complainanta' bill asked for no assessment or levy of a tax, and the circuit court decreed none. The levy of a tax is a very distinct thing from the collection of a tax al- ready levied. The levy is generally a legislative or a giuisi- judicial act. The collection of a tax after it bas been levied is a ministerial act, wbich a court bas power to enforce. �I bave said, and I earnestly maintain, that the taxes which the city of Memphis had levied before the repeal of its char- ter, some of which were collected, but remained on deposit or undisposed of, and some of which are not collected, are assets of the corporation, which its creditors bave an equitable rigbt to bave seized and appropriated to the payment of the corpo- rate debts. By the lawful assessment and levy of a tax the tax payer becomes a debtor to the munie ipality, and the debt may be recovered, like other debts, by a suit at law ; or, wben it is a lien, by a bill in equity. Such, certainly, is the law in Tennessee. Jonesboro v. McKee, 2 Yerger; 170 ; Rutledge V. Fogg, 3 Cold. 568 ; Marr v. The Bank of Tennessee, 4 Cold. 487. The imposition of a tax creates a legal obligation to pay. In The Dollar Savings Bank v. The United States, 19 Wall. 227, this court ruled that, independently of an act of congress authorizing them, suits at law may be maintained by the United States to recover taxes assessed and levied. The statutes of Tennessee leave the matter in no doubt, so far as it relates to the rule in that state. And in the Civil Code, §§ 554, 555, it is enacted that assessed taxes shall be and remain liens upon ail taxable property of the person against whom they are assessed. If they are liens, they are enforce- able in equity. �It is passing strange if those claims, which, by the law of the state are debts due to the city and collectible as such by the orJinary processea of law, are not assets of the corpora- tion for the payment of its debts. And if they can be col- ����