Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/233/434.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 17:30:21+00:00

Document:
[233 U.S. 434, 437] Mr. William Law Stout for defendant in error.
This proceeding began with a petition by an executor, acting under ancillary letters, for the appointment of an appraiser to determine the amount, if any, of the transfer tax due from the estate of the deceased testator, Charles C. Tiffany. Tiffany was not a resident of New York at the time of his death, but left in a safe deposit box in New York four promissory notes made by Pottinger, a resident of Chicago, secured by mortgages of Chicago land to Illinois trustees, and promissory notes of the Southern Railway Company, a Virginia corporation. The appraiser held these notes taxable under the New York laws of 1905, chap. 368, 1, amending 220 of an earlier law, and imposing a tax 'when the transfer is by will or intestate law, of property within the state, and the decedent was a nonresident of the state at the time of his death.' The surro- [233 U.S. 434, 438] gate confirmed the appraiser's report, and his order was affirmed by the appellate division and the court of appeals. 143 App. Div. 327, 128 N. Y. Supp. 106; 202 N. Y. 550, 95 N. E. 1140. The executors contend that the tax deprives them of their property without due process of law.
In support of this position it was argued that if bonds were subject to taxation simply because of their presence within the jurisdiction, it was due to the survival of primitive notions that identified the obligation with the parchment or paper upon which they were written; that bills and notes had a different history, and that there was no ground for extending the conceptions of the infancy of the race to them. It was pointed out that the power to tax simple contracts depends upon power over the person of one of the parties, and does not attach to documentary evidence of such contracts that may happen to be within the jurisdiction. Cases were cited in which this court has pronounced bills and notes to be only evidences of the simple contracts that they express (Pelham v. Way, 15 Wall. 196, 21 L. ed. 55; Wyman v. Halstead [Wyman v. United States] 109 U.S. 654, 656 , 27 S. L. ed. 1068, 1069, 3 Sup. Ct. Rep. 417); and the precise issue was thought to be disposed of by Buck v. Beach, 206 U.S. 392 , 51 L. ed. 1106, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 712, 11 Ann. Cas. 732. We shall discuss this case, but for the moment it is enough to say that for the purposes of argument we assume that bills and notes stand as mere evidences at common law.
But we are bound by the construction given to the New York statutes by the New York courts, and the question is whether a statute that we must read as purporting to give to bills and notes within the state the same standing as bonds for purposes of taxation goes beyond the constitutional power of the state. Again, for the purposes of argument we may assume that there are limits to this kind of power; that the presence of a deed would not warrant a tax measured by the value of the real estate that it had conveyed, or even that a memorandum of a contract required by the statute of frauds would not sup- [233 U.S. 434, 439] port a tax on the value of the contract because it happened to be found in the testator's New York strong box. But it is plain that bills and notes, whatever they may be called, come very near to identification with the contract that they embody. An indorsement of the paper carries the contract to the indorser. An indorsement in blank passes the debt from hand to hand so that whoever has the paper has the debt. It is true that in some cases there may be a recovery without producing and surrendering the paper, but so may there be upon a bond in modern times. It is not primitive tradition alone that gives their peculiarities to bonds, but a tradition laid hold of, modified and adapted to the convenience and understanding of business men. The same convenience and understanding apply to bills and notes, as no one would doubt in the case of bank notes, which technically do not differ from others. It would be an extraordinary deduction from the 14th Amendment to deny the power of a state to adopt the usages and views of business men in a statute on the ground that it was depriving them of their property without due process of law. The necessity of caution in cutting down the power of taxation on the strength of the 14th Amendment often has been adverted to. Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co. 197 U.S. 430, 434 , 49 S. L. ed. 819, 821, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 466. Unless we are bound by authority, we think the statute, so far as we now are concerned with it, plainly within the power of the state to pass.
As to authority, it has been asserted or implied, again and again, that the states had the power to deal with negotiable paper on the footing of situs. 'It is well settled that bank bills and municipal bonds are in such a concrete, tangible form that they are subject to taxation where found, irrespective of the domicil of the owner; . . . Notes and mortgages are of the same nature . . . we see no reason why a state may not declare that, if found within its limits, they shall be subject to taxation.' New [233 U.S. 434, 440] Orleans v. Stempel, 175 U.S. 309, 322 , 323 S., 44 L. ed. 174, 181, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 110; Bristol v. Washington County, 177 U.S. 133, 141 , 44 S. L. ed. 701, 705, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 585; State Assessors v. Comptoir National d'Escompte, 191 U.S. 388, 403 , 404 S., 48 L. ed. 232, 238, 239, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 109; Metropolitan L. Ins. Co. v. New Orleans, 205 U.S. 395, 400 , 402 S., 51 L. ed. 853, 855, 856, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 499. This is the established law unless it has been overthrown by the decision in Buck v. Beach, supra.
No such effect should be attributed to that case. The Ohio notes in Buck's hands that were held not to be taxable in Indiana were moved backward and forward between Ohio and Indiana with the intent to avoid taxation in either state. 206 U.S. 402 . They really were in Ohio hands for business purposes (id. 395), and sending them to Indiana was spoken of by Mr. Justice Peckham as improper and unjustifiable, Id. 402. Their absence from Ohio evidently was regarded as a temporary absence from home. Id. 404. And the conclusion is carefully limited to a refusal to hold the presence of the notes 'under the circumstances already stated' to amount to the presence of property within the state. A distinction was taken between the presence sufficient for a succession tax like that in this case, and that required for a property tax such as then was before the court, and the only point decided was that the notes had no such presence in Indiana as to warrant a property tax. See New York ex rel. New York C. & H. R. R. Co. v. Miller, 202 U.S. 584, 597 , 50 S. L. ed. 1155, 1160, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 714. If Buck v. Beach is not to be distinguished on one of the foregoing grounds, as some of us think that it can be, we are of opinion that it must yield to the current of authorities to which we have referred.
I concur in the result, but cannot concur in the reasoning of the opinion, or rather, its controlling proposition, unmodified. I might pass it by in silence if it did not have larger consequence than the decision of the pending case. The opinion is rested on the proposition, said to be based on authority, that the states have power to deal 'with negotiable paper on the footing of situs;' that is, to regard such paper so far concrete and tangible as to be of itself a subject of taxation, irrespective of the domicil of its owner, or, I add, the locality of the debt which it represents. For the proposition announced, Mr. Justice Brewer, in New Orleans v. Stempel, 175 U.S. 309 , 44 L. ed. 174, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 110, is quoted from. Other cases are cited and it is said to be established law unless it has been overthrown by the decision in Buck v. Beach, 206 U.S. 392 , 51 L. ed. 1106, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 712, 11 Ann. Cas. 732. I refrain from meeting the judgment of my brethren by simply opposing assertion, and I feel constrained to review the cases, including Buck v. Beach. I will do so in the order of their decision.
In Metropolitan L. Ins. Co. v. New Orleans, 205 U.S. 395 , 51 L. ed. 853, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 499, the assessment was also under the act passed on in the Stempel Case. I will not pause to detail the facts. It is enough to say that the credits taxed were loans (evidenced by notes) by the insurance company to its policy holders in Louisiana. The tax was not eo nomine on the notes, but was expressed to be on 'credits, money loaned, bills receivable,' etc., and its amount was ascertained by computing the sum of the face value of all the notes held by the company at the time of the assessment.
The purpose of the taxing law was said to be to lay the burden of taxation equally upon those who do business within the state. And, after comment, it was said: 'Thus it is clear that the measure of taxation [233 U.S. 434, 444] designed by the law is the fair average of the capital employed in the business.' In other words, the investments in the state were taxed, and the legality of the tax was determined by their situs, not by the locality of the notes which represented them, the notes being in New York, at the home of the insurance company.
It was the situs of the debt which determined the legality of the taxation in all of the cases, and united them under the principle expressed in Metropolitan L. Ins. Co. v. New Orleans, that the law regards the place of the origin of negotiable paper as its true home, to which it will return to be paid, and its temporary absence can be left out of account. They do not support the broad proposition that to negotiable paper can be ascribed such tangibility and entity as so to make it a taxable object of itself in a jurisdiction other than that of the obligation it represents. This broad generality is necessary to sustain the tax in the present case if it can be regarded a direct tax on property, for Illiniois, not New York, is the situs of the debts of which the notes taxed are the evidence, and of the mortgages which secure them.
That broad proposition was asserted in Buck v. Beach and rejected. The notes involved had their origin in Ohio and represented investments in that state. Their owner died, and one of the two trustees of his will resided in Indiana. The notes were kept in the custody of the latter except that at the time of assessment of taxes in that state they were sent to Ohio, and after the lapse of a few days returned to him. They were taxed in Indiana. The tax was sustained by the state supreme court, but declared invalid by this court.
The proposition presented for decision was stated thus by Mr. Justice Peckham for the court: 'The sole question, then, for this court, is whether the mere presence of the notes in Indiana [the taxing state] constituted the debts of which the notes were the written evidence, property [233 U.S. 434, 445] within the jurisdiction of that state, so that such debts could be therein taxed.' The prior cases were considered, and it was said: 'There are no cases in this court where an assessment such as the one before us has been involved. We have not had a case where could be therein taxed.' The prior cases was a resident of or present in the state where the tax was imposed, and where no business was done therein by the owner of the notes or his agent relating in any way to the capital evidenced by the notes assessed for taxation. We cannot assent to the doctrine that the mere presence of evidences of debt, such as these notes, under the circumstances already stated, amounts to the presence of property within the state.' And it was pointed out that the prior cases, which were specifically reviewed, gave no support to the rejected doctrine. It was not overlooked that certain specialty debts, state and municipal bonds and circulating notes of banking institutions, have sometimes been treated as property where they were found, though removed from the domicil of the owner, and State Tax on Foreignheld Bonds, 15 Wall. 300, 324, 21 L. ed. 188, was cited. Promissory notes were held not to be within the rule.
It is, however, asserted that the circumstances of the case showed that the notes were fugitives from taxation, alternately from Indiana and Ohio, and that their stay in Indiana was in evasion of their obligations to Ohio, and was 'a transit, although prolonged.' But the bad motive of the possessor of the notes was not made a ground of decision. If the court felt a retributive impulse to deny the notes sanctuary in Indiana, it was suppressed. The court declared that the motive for sending the notes to Indiana was of no consequence, and that the attempt to escape proper taxation in Ohio did not confer jurisdiction on Indiana to tax them (page 402).
I concur in Mr. Justice McKenna's analysis of Buck v. Beach and the other cases, but am of the opinion that the principle there decided applies as well to inheritance and [233 U.S. 434, 447] transfer taxes on notes as to direct taxes; and that therefore the judgment in the present case should be reversed.

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