The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-08-10
INCOME
CASES ARE
APPEALED
New Tax Law is
Up to Supreme
Court.
lHE ARGUMENTS
RECAPITULATED
Is Affirmed and Denied That the
Dickey Law is Constitu.
tionaI and Valid.

III
the Supreme Court yesterday for
a decision on the legality of the
income tax law passed by the Legisla-
ture. The appeal to the court is made
from the payment under protest to
Collector Pratt, yesterday, of the tax
assessed against George H. Robertson.
as an individual and against the Wal
mea Sugar Mill Company as a corpora
ton. The tax was paid yesterday
morning by the first-named plaintiff to
the amount of $1SO.91 and by the Wal
mea company in the sum of $147.40. In
both cases J. w. Pratt, as assessor and
collector of taxes for the First Taxa
ton Division of the Territory Of Ha-
waii, is made defendant, and the
submission of the agreed statement of
facts is presented to the three members
of the Supreme Court.
The agreed facts are in brief as fol-
lows: Plaintiffs paid to Collector Pratt
the sum of money herein specified and
demanded its return on the ground that
the law was not constitutional. The to-
tai income of the corporation named is
given as S7,37040 for the year ending
June Both, and for Mr. Robertson it is
given as Sc, 1858 1t is further set forth
that the return of the tax so paid has
been refused.
The plaintiff alleges that che law is
unconstitutional, that the tax is Illegal
ly withheld and should be returned.
The defendant claims that the act is
constitutional and valid and that as
sessment was legally made and should
stand as made.
: In the case of individuals the reasons
set out by the attorneys for Mr.. Rob-
ertson are given in the following specl-
fication made part of the record sub
mitted to the court:
l. The provisions allowing only one
deduction of one thousand dollars from
the aggregate annual income from all
members of one family composed of one
or both parents and one or more minor
children, husband and wife, and in the
case of a guard an of two or more minor
case Of a guardian of two or more minors
in one family IS inconsistent with the
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments OF
the Constitution of the United States.
2. The provision exempting incomes un-
der one thousand dollars is inconsistent
with the fourteenth and fifteenth amend
ment of the Constitution of the United
States.
3. The provisions of the act in so far as
resulting in taxation of the salaries or
the Chief Justice and Associate Justices
of the Supreme Court and Judges OF the
Circuit Courts of the Territory of Ha-
wall are inconsistent with section Il or
the Organic Act and other laws of the
United States.
A ho of the act in far
as resulting in the taxation of bonds of
the United States Government are incon.
sistent with the Constitution and laws
of the United States
s. The provisions OF the act relating 10
cases of refusal or neglect to make re-
turns whereby the assessor may laWtuiy
summon any officer of corporation OF
any person hav .ng possession OF the DOORS
of the company to produce the same ana
TO give testimony under oath respecting
any income liable to tax and to add two
hundred per cent to the amount OF the
tax in case of fraudulent returns Is IN
consistent with the fourth, fifth or sixth
amendments of the Constitution of the
United States.
6. sad act arbitrarily. unreasonably
and unlawfully exempts persons ana
property from taxation.
7. Said act is unconstitutional as re-
sulting in duplicate taxation for the rea-
SON that the income, gains and profits
derived from all real and personal prop
erty situate in said Territory is taxed
pursuant to section II and So of act 81 of
| the Sessions law of 1885, heretofore passed
and now standing unrepealed.
8. That the whole act is uncopstftu-
tional, invalid, imperative and void by
reason of the invalidity of the many pro-
visions thereof inasmuch as 1t would re-
suit in a subversion of the Legislative in-
tent to enforce only the remaining pro-
visions of said act.
9. That said Act is otherwise unconsti-
tutional, null and void.
10. That said Income Tax law is based
on no rule or uniformity, nor is it based
on rule of apportionment, such as the
Constitution requires of taxes imposed by
Congress upon the States of .--e United
States, and is, therefore, inconsistent
with the Constitution of the United sState
as well as with the Organic Act giving
the Constitution the same force and ef-
feet as elsewhere in thez United States.