Honorable Ernest Gulnn 

County Attorney 

El Paso County 

El Paso, Texas 

Dear Sir: Opinion No, O-3545 

Re: Whether OP not a money lender's 

occupation tax can be collected 

under Subdivision 15, Article 

7047, Vernon's Annotated Civil 

Statutes, where'one person 

loans money as agent of another 

person. 

This is in reply to your request for OUT" opinion concerning money lenders. Your letter reads in part as follows: 

"The Tax Assessor-Collector has asked me to 

advise him whether or not a State and Count,y occupation tax can be collected from certain money 

lenders doing business within the City of El Paso, 

and has specifieallg asked me whether or not Subdivision 15 of Ar,ticle 7047 covers such businesses, 

"The facts, of the case Involved are these: 

a person living in San Antonio, Texas, has filed, 

in the assumed name records of this County, as 

owner of a money lending outfit, and has ~a man 

living in El Paso looking after the business here, 

t,he employee in El Paso receiving a salary for 

his work2 as well as a corm~fssi~r~ on the loans 

m&e, and loans the money advanced in the business by the man in San Antonio, If any losses 

are suffered in a loan, they are taken by the 

owner, in whose name ,the business is registered, 

"Under these facts is the owx,er required to 

pay the money lenders tax, and jiould the person 

employed by him in El Faso County be considered as 

an agent for the person advancing the money to loan? 

"If the owner, or the person in whose name 
. , 

Honorable Ernest Guinn, page 2 O-3545 

the business is registered, lives outside of the 

State of Texas, would a different rule apply? 

We are unable to find any statute that imposes an 

occupation tax on money lenders in addition to the tax provided 

for in Subdivision 15 of Article 7047, Vernon's Annotated Revised Civil Statutes of Texas, 

This leaves us the questfon of'whether or not a tax 

is Imposed In the case you ask about by said Article 7047, the 

pertinent, parts of which read as follows: 

"There shall be levied on and collected 

from every person, ffrm, company or association 

of personsp pursuing any of the occupations 

named in the following numbered subdIvIsions of 

this article, an annual occupation tax, which 

shall be paid annually in advance except where 

herein other-wise provided, on every such occupation or separate establishment, as follows: 

95 0 Money Lenders. -7 From everg.person, 

firm, assocfation of personsJ or corporation 

%hose business Is lending money as agent OP 

agent,3 for any corporation, firm or association, 

either in this Stata or out of it an annual 

tax of One Hundred Fffty Dollars [$150000) (I 

Provfded, that ff an off'ice is maintained in 

more than one county, the State tax shall be 

payable in each county 'where an office is maintained; and, provfded, further, that this Tax 

shall not apply to persons, firms, or associations who lend money as an incfdent merely to 

the real estate busWe%, T;OJ shall said tax 

apply to banks, or banking 

iarly organized es SL.C:=~ 

Fnstitu;ions regua - o D e 

It will be no,tifced ,that the only personj firm, association, or 

@orporation taxes is a person, etc,, "lending money as agent or 

agents for' any corPo~atiOR, firm or associatfon". Under the 

facts that you give, there is a princ'ipal and an agent, and the 

agent is engaged in lending money as agent for the principal. 

The agent is the person in El Paso, and the principal Is the 

person in San Antonio, The princfpal, the San Antonio person, 

13 not liable for 'the tax because the tax is only Imposed on the 

person lending money as afi agent. 
Honorable Ernest Guinn, page 3 o-3545 

Is the agent, the El Paso person, in this case liable 

for the tax? We think he is not, because the only money lending 

agents liable are 

tion". 

"agents for any corporation, firm or associaThe El Paso agent is not an agent for azporation, 

z or association, but he Is an agent for a person. An individual person'cannot be construed to be a corporation, a firm 

OP an association. 

"Corporations are juristic persons brought into ex-' 

istence by the national government, 

or by some'foreign sovereignty", 

by some state of the Union, 

10 Tex. Jur. 586. Certainly 

the principal, the San Antonio person, in this 'case Is not a 

corporation. 

We'do not believe that this San Antonio person could 

be construed to be a firm. In the case of Dodson v, Warren 

Hardware Co., (Texl Ct. Clv, App.) 162 S.W. 952, the court said: 

II'A firm Is a partnership.' Black's Law 

Dist." 

We cannot construe the principal in this case to be 

an association, In the case of In re Lloyd3 of Texas, (Dlst. 

CT., N, D. Tex.) 43 Fed. (2nd) 383, the court said: 

"An 'association is an organized union of 

persons for a good purpose; a body of persons acting 

together for the promotion of some object of mutual 

interest or advantage. 

"It Is fundamentally a large partnership, 

from which It differs in that it, is not bound by 

the acts of the individual partners, abut only by 

those of its manager or trustee; and that shares 

in it are transferable, and t&it it is not dissolved by the retirement, death, or bankruptcy of 

its individual members. 

Our answer to your inquiry is that no occupation tax 

can be collected from either the prineipal'or the agent under 

the facts you have given us. This answer applies whether the 

principal lives in Texas or outside of the State, 
Hbfioreble Ernest Guinn, page 4 o-3545 

Yours very truly, 

ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS 

By s,k Cecil C, Rotsch 

Cecil C. Rotsch 

Assfstant 

CCR:mp:wc 

s/Grover Sellers 

Approved Opinion Committee By s/BwB Chairman