Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/641

605 JURISDICTION TO TAX 605 view in another part of this opinion. The decision in State Tax on Foreign-Held Bonds had not been modified by the cases cited upon the point in question, since Savings b" Loan Society v. Multr- nomah County merely disapproved a dictum in the case with re- gard to the taxation of mortgaged land, while New Orleans v. Stempel rested upon the doctrine of a business situs. The argu- ment in support of the view taken proves too much. It is true that the state of the debtor's domicile enforces the debt; so does the law of every other state into which the debtor comes or has property. If one state may therefore tax the debt, so should the other; indeed each state which allows a suit on the debt taxes that privilege, by the fees of court. This fact is recognized in a later garnishment case, Harris v. Balk,^^ which allows an action of gar- nishment in any state in which the garnishee can be found, thus depriving the cited case of Chicago, Rock Island, b° Pacific Ry. v. Sturm of its efficacy in the instant decision. It is also true that the state which created the contract created also its power of sur- viving; that was done at the time the contract was created, and might then have been paid for by an excise tax had the Constitu- tion of the United States not forbidden; but there is no necessary connection between the domicile of the debtor and the place where the debt was created. It is also true that the state of the debtor's domicile permits the debt to be collected by an administrator of its appointment; so does every state in which an administrator is appointed. Such decisions are, however, only sporadic. By the great weight of authority it is agreed that a debt has no territorial situs, and can be taxed only as part of the personal tax of the creditor. A creditor may be taxed in the state of his domicile upon all debts and choses in action due to him; ^^ but the state of the debtor cannot tax a debt due to a nonresident creditor.^" 8« 198 U. S. 215 (1905). 14 Kan. 588 (187s); Fisher v. Rush County, 19 Kan. 414 (1877); Thomas v. Mason County Court, 4 Bush (Ky.) 135 (1868); State v. Bentley, 23 N. J. L. 532 (3 Zab.) (1852); State V. Darcy, 51 N. J. L. 140, 16 Atl. 160 (1888); Conner v. Wilson, 6 Ohio Dec. (Repr.) 941, 9 Am. L. Rec. i (1880); McKeen v. County of Northampton, 49 Pa. 519 (1865); Commonwealth v. Pennsylvania Coal Co., 197 Pa. 551,47 Atl. 740 (1901); Grundy County v. Tennessee Coal I. & R. Co., 94 Tenn. 295, 29 S. W. 116 (1895). '° San Francisco v. Mackay, 10 Sawy. 431, 22 Fed. 602 (1884); Jack v. Walker,
 * ' Scripps V. Board of Review, 183 111. 278, 55 N. E. 700 (1899); Wilcox v. Ellis,