Page:United States Reports, Volume 257.djvu/83

2 Rh against Smietanka in an action to recover taxes exacted by his predecessor as Collector of Internal Revenue. Mr. Assistant Attorney General Ottinger, with whom Mr. Solicitor General Beck was on the brief, for Smietanka.

Mr. William Beye, with whom Mr. K. K. Knapp and Mr. R. W. Campbell were on the brief, for Indiana Steel Company.

The action was properly brought against the collector who was in office at the time of the commencement of the suit. The United States has "enacted a system of corrective justice" by which the taxpayer is permitted "to sue the Government through its collector," and if the tax "was wrongfully exacted the courts will give him relief by a judgment which the United States pledges herself to pay." Cheatham v. United States, 92 U. S. 85, 88; Philadelphia v. Collector, 5 Wall. 720, 733.

The statute requiring the collector to pay the moneys collected by him into the Treasury took away the common-law action theretofore existing, and provided only a purely statutory remedy, which, while not in form, is in substance against the United States. Hubbard v. Collector, 12 Wall. 1, 11, 13; Cary v. Curtis, 3 How. 236; Philadelphia v. Collector, 5 Wall. 720, 732; Schoenfeld v. Hendricks, 152 U. S. 691; Kinney v. Connat, 166 Fed. 720; United States v. Frerichs, 124 U. S. 315; Kings County Savings Institution v. Blair, 116 U. S. 200, 205; Amson v. Murphy, 115 U. S. 579.

The proper defendant is the collector in office at the time suit is commenced. Armour v. Roberts, 151 Fed. 846.

The pertinent statutes are, §§ 3220, 3219, 3224, 3226, 3227, 3228, 3210, 771, 3689, 989, Rev. Stats., and Act of February 8, 1899, c. 121, 30 Stat. 822. These remedial statutes should be liberally construed to accomplish the purpose of their enactment.