Page:Haynie v. Surplus Trading Co.pdf/4

510 agencies to levy and collect taxes pursuant to the State laws upon personal property situated within said military reservation.

Counsel for appellee seek to uphold the decree of the chancellor denying the right of the State and its subordinate agencies to levy and collect such taxes upon the authority of Concessions Co. v. Morris (Wash.), 186 Pac. 655. In that case it was held that the Camp Lewis Military Reservation, which was donated by Pierce County to the United States by consent of the State Legislature, excepting only the right to serve criminal and civil process therein, from the exclusive control of Congress, is without the State in both a jurisdictional and territorial sense, and personal property located thereon is not taxable under the State laws.

We do not agree with the reasoning of the court in that ease, and are of the opinion that it is contrary to the trend of the decision of the United States Supreme Court bearing on the question as well as to the weight of authority in the State courts. The true rule governing cases of this sort is stated by the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in Nikis v. Virginia, 131 S.E. 236, 46 A.L.R. 219. In that case the court held to be subject to a State license tax a mercantile business carried on in a railroad station situated on land ceded to the Federal Government for an approach to an interstate bridge. It was there recognized that the State could not tax land or buildings situated thereon which had been ceded by the State to the United States, but it was expressly held that personal property situated in buildings upon said land owned by third parties was liable to be taxed by the State and county in which it should be found. In discussing the question the court said:

"That the right of a State to tax the property of others located upon lands owned by the United States, although it cannot tax such lands, will not be held to be abandoned by the State except for the most compelling reasons, is quite manifest from several decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States."