Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/702

666 666 HARVARD LAW REVIEW against non-residents for the payment of the tax, but confines it- self to creating a lien on the sources of the income taxed. But, to Judge Stone, direct power of compulsion over the person is not a prerequisite to the levy of a personal tax, provided other essentials are present. On this point he says : "There is nothing new in this conception of a nonresident being taxed for rights or privileges he exercises under the protection of another state. Inheritance taxes are illustrations. Mager v. Grima, 8 How. 490, 12 L. Ed. 1 168; Scholey v. Rew, 23 Wall. 331, 23 L. Ed. 99. Such a tax is levied against the nonresident as well as the resident because of his inheritance — the state protects him in that privilege. Occupation or business taxes are also illustrative. And this would be so because the state of Oklahoma permits him to carry on his business within the state, and protects him therein, irrespective of whether he lives within or without the state, or manages the business from within or without the state. When he can be properly taxed for the privilege of inheriting the property or carrying on a business within another state, why can- not he be taxed upon an income he derives from business within the state, when a tax upon such an income as this is a levy on the privilege of producing, creating, receiving and enjoying an income? It is true the tax on the income is not upon the business conducted, but it is also true that the income springs therefrom, and, following the situs thereof, as the child takes legally the residence of the parent, it carries the right of taxation with it." ^°5 This says that a person is something more than a physical cor- pus. From the standpoint of legal relations, a person is the focus of many interests, and the person is pro tanto where any one of his interests is. It is with relations that the law has to deal, and the relations of a person may radiate to portions of the globe which his body never visits. Such a notion may be criticized aS meta- physical, but it is not on that account an anomaly in the law. And, though metaphysical, it may well contain more of substantial realism than a view which sees in a person nothing but what is encased in a suit of clothes. Judge Stone does not rest with this justification for the assessment of income taxes on nonresidents. He uses it to meet Mr. Shaffer on his own ground, and then ad- vances to another position. His analysis of the considerations that should control the legal concept of situs is well worth quoting: »» 250 Fed. 876-77 (1918).