Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/377

Rh situated in other States, in other sovereignties, protected by their laws and taxable there, and therefore it ought not to be subject to a second taxation in New York.

The court also, in rendering the decision, used the following language: "There seems to be no place for the fiction" (that personal property follows the owner) "in a well-adjusted system of taxation. In such a system a fundamental requisite is that it be harmonious, but harmony does not exist unless the taxing power is exerted with reference exclusively either to the situs of the property or to the residence of the owner. Both rules can not obtain, unless we impute inconsistency to the law and oppression to the taxing power. Whichever of these rules we find to be the true one, whichever we find to be founded in justice and the reason of the thing, it necessarily excludes the other; because we ought to suppose, indeed, we are bound to assume, that other States and governments have adopted the same rule. If, then, proceeding on the true principles of taxation, we subject to its burdens all goods and chattels actually within our jurisdiction without regard to the owner's domicile, it must be understood that the same rule prevails everywhere. If we proceed in the opposite rule, and impose the tax on account of the domicile, without regard to the actual situs, while the same property is taxed in another sovereignty by reason of its situs there, we necessarily subject the citizen to a double taxation, and for this no sound reason can be given."

In further support of its position the court made use of the following illustration: "A citizen, a resident of Massachusetts, may own a farm in one of the counties of this State, and large wealth belonging to him may be invested in cattle, in sheep or horses, which graze the fields, or are visible to the eyes of the taxing power. Now, these goods and chattels have an actual situs as distinctly as the farm itself. Putting the inquiry, therefore, with reference to both, ‘Are they real estate, and personal?’ so as to be subject to taxation under that definition. It seems that but one answer can be given to this question, and that answer must be according to the actual truth of the case. If we take the fiction instead of the truth, then the situs of these chattels is in Massachusetts, and they are not within this State. The statute means one thing or the other; it can not have double or inconsistent interpretations; and as this is impossible, so we can not, under and according to the statute, tax the citizen of Massachusetts with respect to his chattels here, and at the same time tax the citizen of New York in respect to his chattels having an actual situs there. In both cases the property must be within the State, or there is no right to tax at all."

Since this decision by its highest court, personal property, though