Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/240/118/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 04:51:25+00:00

Document:
Revised Stat., § 3224, is not inapplicable to taxes imposed by the Income Tax Law of 1913, but is clearly within the contemplation of par. L of the Law, 38 Stat. 179.
The provisions of Rev.Stat., §§ 3220, 3226, 3227 are also applicable to proceeding for recovery of taxes erroneously or illegally assessed and collected under the Income Tax Law of 1913.
A suit may not be brought to enjoin the assessment or collection of a tax because of the alleged unconstitutionality of the statute imposing it.
The facts that many suits would have to be brought by persons to recover taxes paid under an unconstitutional statute and that meanwhile, under Rev.Stat., § 3187, taxes imposed become a lien and constitute a cloud on the title of property held inadequate to sustain jurisdiction of a suit in equity to restrain the collection of taxes on the ground of unconstitutionality of the statute imposing them.
appeal to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue after payment of taxes and only having a right to sue after his refusal to refund.
The facts, which involve the jurisdiction of the district court of suits brought to restrain the collection of taxes and the construction and application of §§ 3220, 3224, 3226 and 3227, Rev.Stat., are stated in the opinion.
The appellants filed their bill in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia against the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to enjoin the assessment and collection of the taxes imposed by the income tax section of the Tariff Act of October 3, 1913, c. 16, 38 Stat. 166, 181, and especially the surtaxes therein provided for, on the ground that the statute was void for repugnancy to the Constitution of the United States. The case is here on appeal from the judgment of the court below, affirming the action of the trial court in sustaining a motion to dismiss the complaint for want of jurisdiction because the complainants had an adequate remedy at law, and because of the provision of Rev.Stat. § 3224 that "no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court."
"That all administrative, special, and general provisions of law, including the laws in relation to the assessment, remission, collection, and refund of internal revenue taxes not heretofore specifically repealed and not inconsistent with the provisions of this section are hereby extended and made applicable to all the provisions of this section and to the tax herein imposed."
And, for the same reason, we do not further notice a contention as to the inapplicability of §§ 3220, 3226, and 3227, to which effect was given by the court below, requiring an appeal to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue after payment of a tax claimed to have been erroneously or illegally assessed and collected, and, upon his refusal to return the sum paid, giving a right to sue for its recovery.
not judicial, to collect them, with appeals to specified tribunals, and suits to recover back moneys illegally exacted, was a system of corrective justice intended to be complete, and enacted under the right belonging to the government to prescribe the conditions on which it would subject itself to the judgment of the courts in the collection of its revenues. In the exercise of that right, it declares by § 3224 that its officers shall not be enjoined from collecting a tax claimed to have been unjustly assessed when those officers, in the course of general jurisdiction over the subject matter in question, have made the assignment [assessment] and claim that it is valid."
And this doctrine has been repeatedly applied until it is no longer open to question that a suit may not be brought to enjoin the assessment or collection of a tax because of the alleged unconstitutionality of the statute imposing it. Shelton v. Platt, 139 U. S. 591; Pittsburgh &c. Ry. v. Board of Public Works,, 172 U. S. 32; Pacific Steam Whaling Co. v. United States, 187 U. S. 447, 187 U. S. 451-452.
title. But these allegations are wholly inadequate under the hypothesis which we have assumed solely for the sake of the argument, to sustain jurisdiction, since it is apparent on their face they allege no ground for equitable relief independent of the mere complaint that the tax is illegal and unconstitutional and should not be enforced -- allegations which, if recognized as a basis for equitable jurisdiction, would take every case where a tax was assailed because of its unconstitutionality out of the provisions of the statute, and thus render it nugatory, while it is obvious that the statute plainly forbids the enjoining of a tax unless, by some extraordinary and entirely exceptional circumstance, its provisions are not applicable.
There is a contention that the provisions requiring an appeal to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue after payment of the taxes, and giving a right to sue in case of his refusal to refund, are wanting in due process, and therefore there is jurisdiction. But we think it suffices to state that contention to demonstrate its entire want of merit.

References: § 3224
 § 3187
 § 3224
 § 3224
 v. 
 v. 
 v.