Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/94/94mass75.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 17:56:26+00:00

Document:
The legislature have power, by a general law, to require corporations organized here to pay to the treasurer of the Commonwealth a tax upon the excess of the market value of all the capital stock thereof over the value of their real estate and machinery taxable in the city or town where they are situated.
A gas light company, incorporated under a charter which does not authorize it to take private property, not already appropriated to public use, or impose upon it any public duty, is not a public corporation in such sense as to exempt its property from taxation in the city or town where it is situated.
Gas pipes owned by a gas light company and used for the purpose of distributing gas through the streets, and the meters used for measuring out the gas to the consumers, are to be regarded as "machinery" of the corporation, and their value is accordingly to be deducted from the market value of the capital stock of the corporation, in ascertaining the state tax to be assessed upon the corporation under St. 1804, c. 208.
CONTRACT brought to recover the amount of a tax assessed upon a gas light corporation, for the year 1864, under St. 1864, c. 208.
It was agreed, in this court, that all the formal requirements of the statute had been complied with. The commissioners determined the market value of the capital stock of the defendants to be $240,000, and deducted therefrom the value of the real estate and machinery for making gas, amounting together to $126,354; leaving a balance of $113,646, upon which they assessed the tax now sought to be recovered. The mains and pipes used for distributing gas, laid in the streets and ways of Lowell, and the mains leading from the works to the gasometers, together with the meters in the places where the gas is taken, were of the value of $113,646.
The defendants were incorporated by St. 1849, c. 234, and were taxed in Lowell in 1864 for all their property, valued at $240,000.
The case was reserved, by Chapman, J., for the determination of the full court.
Co. v. Boston, 9 Met. 199 . Wayland v. County Commissioners, 4 Gray 500 , and cases cited. Charlestown v. County Commissioners, 1 Allen 199 . The defendants have power to dig up and open streets and lanes; a use for which the person owning the fee might claim damages. They likewise have public duties. They may be compelled to light the streets. See Shepard v. Milwaukee Gas Co. 6 Wisconsin, 539; S. C. 11 Wisconsin, 234; St. 1861, c. 168, §§ 11,12. A gas light company is intended for the benefit of the public, as much as an aqueduct company.
The property in question is neither real estate nor machinery.
T. Wentworth, for the defendants.
aspect, it is clear that it was competent for the legislature to impose the assessment as an excise or duty under the Constitution, part 2, c. 1, § 1, art. 4.
It is contended, in behalf of the Commonwealth, that the tax assessed on the defendants is legal and valid, and that no deduction ought to be made therefrom on account of real estate or machinery owned by them, because the corporation is not taxable at all therefor in the city of Lowell. The ground of this contention is, that the defendants are a quasi public corporation, and come within the principle on which turnpike, railroad, canal and other like corporations, established for the convenience and accommodation of the public, are held to be exempt from ordinary taxation in the cities or towns where they own property, which is held and used by them for purposes connected with or essential to the due exercise of their corporate rights and duties.
shall be committed, no disturbance be created to the easement of the public, and no injury done to abutting owners of private property. St. 1849, c. 234. Gen. Sts. c. 61, § 16. There is therefore no ground for the exemption of the defendants from ordinary taxation on their real estate and machinery.
and final processes are carried on, from its generation in the retort to its delivery for the use of the consumers. No satisfactory reason has been suggested by the attorney general for excluding any part of the value of this apparatus from the deduction which the tax commissioners are required to make for the machinery of the corporation properly taxable in the city where it is established, and we have been unable to see any plausible ground for refusing to make such deduction.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 1
 art. 4
 § 16