Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/87091/new-orleans-c-l-r-co-vs
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 13:14:40+00:00

Document:
Appellant New Orleans C. and L. R. Co.
Exemption from taxation is never to be presumed. The legislature itself cannot be held to have intended to surrender the taxing power unless its intention to do so has been declared in clear and unmistakable words. Vicksburg &c.; Railroad v. Dennis, 116 U. S. 665 , 116 U. S. 668 , and cases cited. Assuming, without deciding, that the City of New Orleans was authorized to exempt the New Orleans City Railroad Company from taxation under general laws of the state, the contract between them affords no evidence of an intention to do so. The franchise to build and run a street railway was as much subject to taxation as any other property.
In Gordon v. Appeal Tax Court, 3 How. 133, upon which the plaintiff in error much relied, the only point decided was that an act of the legislature, containing the charter of a bank upon condition that the corporation should pay certain sums annually for public purposes, and declaring that, upon its accepting and complying with the provisions of the act, the faith of the state was pleaded not to impose any further tax or burden upon the corporation during the continuance of the charter, exempted the stockholders from taxation on their stock, and so much of the opinion as might, taken by itself, seem to support this writ of error, has been often explained or disapproved. State Bank v. Knoop, 16 How. 369, 57 U. S. 386 , 57 U. S. 401 -402; People v. Commissioners, 4 Wall. 244, 71 U. S. 259 ; Jefferson Bank v. Skelly, 1 Black 436, 66 U. S. 446 ; Farrington v. Tennessee, 95 U. S. 679 , 95 U. S. 690 , 95 U. S. 694 ; Stone v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 116 U. S. 307 , 116 U. S. 328 .
109 U.S. 109 U. S. 398 , 109 U. S. 400 .
The New Orleans City Railroad Company having had no right of exemption from the tax in question, it is unnecessary to consider whether such a right, had it existed, would have passed by the conveyance to the plaintiff in error. See Chesapeake & Ohio Railway v. Miller, 114 U. S. 176 , 114 U. S. 184 , and cases cited; Picard v. East Tennessee Railroad, 130 U. S. 637 .

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