Evening star., 1941-03-26

OF AppeQLS ueClSlOH III Ho LOCuI
income tar case inpolDing Paul M.
DeHart, War Department employej
Before STEPHENS, MILLER and
| VINSON, associate justices.
MILLER, associate justice: The ques-
ton presented on this appeal from de-
cision of the Board of Tax Appeals in
favor of respondent DeHart, is whether
he is entitled to a refund of income tax
paid to the District of Columbia for the
year ending December 81, 1899, in the
amount of 1886. The pertinent lam
guage of the applicable statute reads as
| follows:
TAX ON INDIVIDUALS-T is
hereby levied for each taxable year
upon the taxable income of every in
dividual domiciled in the District OF
Columbia on the last day of the tax
able year tax at the following
rates:
In the case of Sweeney ". District of
Columbia, this court decided that the
controlling consideration in determining
the domicile of person engaged in Gov
ernment service in the District of Co
lumbia is found not in length or definite
ness of term, nor in election as against
appointment, nor in any compulsion
peculiar to military men, but in the fact
that federal duty requires residential
presence in the District, upon the part of
all who must come and remain here to do
the work of the Government. Accord
ingly, we held that one who comes to the
District and remains to render service to
the Government which requires his pres
ence here. may retain his domicile in the
service terminates, unless he gives clear
evidence of his intention to forgo his
State allegiance; that the presumption of
continuity of State domiciliation would
require strong evidence to overcome it;
District, or ambiguous showing of inten-
ton to change, would be insufficient for
this purpose; but that, instead, evidence
of intention to change domicile must be
clear and uneQuiVocal. An examination
of the legislative history of the act in
volved in the present case clearly reveals
Congressional intent that the same result
should be reached in its administration.
AT this point the opinion contained
the following footnote: Senator
Overton, chairman of the Subcommit
tee of the Committee on Appropria-
tions for the District of Columbia
and chairman of the Senate Con-
ference on the bill. said, on the floor
of the Senate: Mr. President, l now
call attention to the fact that the
individual income tax is imposed only
on those domiciled in the District of
Columbia. 1t. therefore. necessarily ex-
cludes from its imposition all Senators
and members of the House of Repre-
sentatives, the President of the United
States all cabinet officers and all Fed
eral employees who have been brought
into the District from the various
States of the Union to serve their
vided such employees have not of their
volition surrendered their domicileS
in the States and have voluntarily
acquired domiciles within the Dis
trict of Columbia
This, therefore, is the established law
of the District of Columbia; as both
parties agree. The District has prose-
cuted its appeal to determine, however,
whether the facts of the present case
bring it within the law as thus declared.
The Board of Tax Appeals found. among
other things, that respondent DeHart
for several years last past has been and
still is residing in the District of Colum-
bia; he is in the civil service of the
United States as chief clerk of the
personnel and organization division of
the National Guard Bureau, War De-
partment, with Offices in Washington,
D. c.; he was born and reared in Penn
Sylvania and resided there until 1914,
when he came to the District of Colum-
bia; his parents continue to reside at
| 1888 North Fourth street, Harrisburg, in
which premises respondents room is
maintained intact and in which room
some of his clothes and his childhood
toys are kept; he claims these premises
as his legal residence; he pays no sum
as rent or for lodging, but makes none
tary presents to his parents from time
| to time; he visits his parents home over
week ends at least eight times a year,
| and has been there between Christmas
and New Year of each year: he is, and
has been since he came of age, a regis
| tered voter in Pennsylvania, and has
voted in all general elections there dur
ing that period; he paid the Pennsyl-
vania poll tax each year until the repeal
of the poll tax law, and since that time
has annually paid the Pennsylvania oc-
| cupational tax; he expects retirement in
| four years and intends to leave Wash
| ington at that time. The board found,
also, a number of facts concerning re-
spondent's attachments in Washington,
D. c., including marriage to a native
of Washington; purchase and occupancy
| of home in Washington; an agreement
with his wife, prior to her death in
1885. that upon retirement they would
spend six months at Selby on the Bay,
in Maryland, where he purchased an un-
improved lot for future summer resi-
dence; bank accounts in Washington in
stitutions; church and lodge memberships
and contributions for charitable pur-
poses in Washington: and filing of Fed
eral income tax returns in Baltimore.