Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/882

 868 FEDEEAL EEPOHTEK. �Btoekholder before the taxes upon his shares are satisfied, to personal liability for such taxes. What was said in Cummings v. Nat> Bank, 101 U. S. 157, may be repeated bere : �" The bank, as a corporation, ia not liable for the tax, and occupies the posi- tion o£ a stakeholder, on whom the cost and trouble of the litigation should not fall.' If it pays, it may be subjected to a separate suit by each stock- holder. If it refuses, it must either withhold dividends and subject itself to litigation by doing so, or refuse to obey the law and subject itself to suit by the State. It holds a trust relation, wluch authorizes a court of equity to see that it is protected in the exercise of the duties appertaining to it. To pre- vent multiplicity of suits, equity may interfere." �Passing this preliminai;y point, I corne to the consideration of cer- tain questions arising upon the merits, as to some of which I have had very great difficulty. �In People v. Weaver, 100 U. S. 539, it was ruled that the inhibi- tion upon state taxation of national bank shares "at a greater rate than is assessed upon other moneyed capital in the hands of individ- ual citizens," had reference to the entire process of assessment, and prevented as well an unequal valuation of such shares, compared with other moneyed capital, as an unequal rate of percentage thereon. Consequently, a statute Of New York, which prescribed an uniform rate of taxation up'on personal property, but permitted the tax-payer to deduct his just debts firom the aggregate value of his personal property, other than shares of. bank stock, (f rom the value lof . which lat- ter property- no such deduction was allowed,) was held to work an illegal discrimination against moneyed capital invested in such shares. Stich a mode of valuation, the supreme court of the United States held, had the effect to impose greater burdens upon moneyed capital invested' in bank shares than upon other moneyed capital in the hands of individual citizens. �In Pelton v. Nat. Bank, 101 U. S. 146, the court said: �"It is sufflcient to say that we are quite satisfled that any System of assess- ment of taxes which exacts from the owner of the shares of national bank stock a larger stmi in proportion to their actual value than it does from the owner of other moneyed capital, valued in like manner, does tax them at a greater rate, within the meaning of the act of congress." �The fundamental inquiry, therefore, is whether the statute of Indiana prescribes any rule of taxation of- moneyed capital which nec- essarily conflicts, or which, in its application, may confliot, with the act of congress permitting state taxation of national bank shares. In the prosecution of this inquiry I have examined with great care the numerous, and, in some respects, complicated, provisions of the act ��� �