Court Opinion

ID: 9418408
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:24:50.233754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:02.652877
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brandéis,
dissenting, delivered the following opinion, in which
Mr. Justice Clarke concurred.
Financiers, with the aid of lawyers, devised long ago two different methods by which a corporation can, without increasing its indebtedness, keep for corporate purposes accumulated profits, and yet, in effect, distribute these profits among its stockholders. One method is a simple one. The capital stock is increased; the new stock is paid up with the accumulated profits; and the new shares of paid-up stock are then distributed among the stockholders pro rata as a dividend. If the stockholder prefers ready money to increasing his holding of the stock in the company, he sells the new stock received as a dividend. The other method h slightly more complicated. Arrangements are made for an increase of stock to be offered to stockholders pro rata at par and, at the same time, for the payment of a cash dividend equal to the amount which the stockholder will be required to pay to *221the company, if he avails himself of the right to subscribe for his pro rata of the new stock. If the stockholder takes the new stock, as is expected, he may endorse the dividend check received to the corporation and thus pay for the new stock. In order to ensure that all the new stock so offered will be taken, the price at which it is offered is fixed far below what it is believed will be its market value. If the stockholder prefers ready money to an increase of his holdings of stock, he may sell his right to take new stock pro rata, which is evidenced by an assignable instrument. In that event the purchaser of the rights repays to the corporation, as the subscription price of the new stock, an amount equal to that which it had paid as a cash dividend to the stockholder.
Both of these methods of retaining accumulated profits while in effect, distributing them as a dividend had been in common use in the United States for many years prior to the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment. They were recognized equivalents. Whether a particular corporation employed one or the other method was determined sometimes by requirements of the law under which the corporation was organized; sometimes it was determined by preferences of the individual officials of the corporation; and sometimes by stock market conditions. Whichever method was employed the resultant distribution of the new stock was commonly referred to as a stock dividend. How these two methods have been employed may be illustrated by the action in this respect (as reported in Moodys Manual, 1918 Industrial, and the Commercial and Financial Chronicle), of some of the Standard Oil companies, since the disintegration pursuant to the decision of this court in 1911. Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1.
(a) Standard Oil Co. (of Indiana), an Indiana corporation. It had on. December 31, 1911, $1,000,000 capital stock (all common), and a large surplus. On May 15, *2221912, it increased its capital stock to $30,000,000, and paid a simple stock dividend of 2900 per cent, in stock.1
(b) Standard Oil Co. (of Nebraska), a Nebraska corporation. If had on December 31, 1911/ $600,000 capital stock (all common), and a substantial surplus. On April 15, 1912, it paid a simple stock dividend of 33 1/3 per cent., increasing the outstanding capital to $800,000. During the calendar year 1912 it paid cash dividends aggregating 20 per cent.; but it earned considerably more, and had at the close of the year again a substantial surplus. On June 20, 1913, it declared a further stock dividend of 25 per cent., thus increasing the capital to $1,000,000.2
(c) The Standard Oil Co. (of Kentucky), a Kentucky corporation. It had on December 31, 1913, $1,000,000 capital stock (all common), and $3,701,710 surplus. Of this surplus $902,457 had been earned during the calendar year 1913, the net profits of that year having been $1,002,-457 and the dividends paid only $100,000 (10 per cent.). On December 22, 1913, a cash dividend of $200 per share was declared payable on February 14, 1914, to stockholders of record January 31, 1914; and these stockholders were offered the right to subscribe for an equal amount of new stock at par and to apply the cash dividend in payment therefor. The outstanding stock was thus increased to $3,000,000. During the calendar years 1914, 1915 and 1916, quarterly dividends were paid on this stock at an annual rate of between 15 per cent, and 20 per cent., but the company’s surplus increased by $2,347,614, so that on December 31, 1916, it had a large surplus over its $3,000,000 capital stock. On December 15, 1916, the company issued a circular to the stockholders, saying:
“The company’s business for this year has shown a *223very good increase in volume and a proportionate increase in profits, and it is estimated that by Jan. 1, 1917, the company will have a surplus of over $4,000,000. The board feels justified in stating that if the proposition to increase the capital stock is acted on favorably, it will be proper in the near future to declare á cash dividend of 100%; and to allow the stockholders the privilege pro rata according to their holdings, to purchase the new stock at par, the plan being to allow the stockholders, if they desire, to use their cash dividend to pay for the new stock.”
The increase of stock was voted. The company then paid a cash dividend of 100 per cent., payable May 1, 1917, again offering to such stockholders the right to subscribe for an equal amount of new stock at par and to apply the cash dividend in payment therefor.
Moodys Manual, describing the transaction with exactness, says first that the stock was increased from $3,000,000 to $6,000,000, "a cash dividend of 100%, payable May 1, 1917, being exchanged for one share of new stock, the equivalent of a 100% stock dividend.” But later in the report giving, as customary in the Manual, the dividend record of the company, the Manual says: “A stock dividend of 200% was paid Feb. 14, 1914, and one of 100% on May 1, 1917.” And in reporting specifically the income account of the company for a series of years ending December 31, covering net profits; dividends paid and surplus for the year, it gives, as the aggregate of dividends for the year 1917, $660,000; (which was the aggregate paid on the quarterly cash dividend — 5 per cent. January and April; 6 per cent. July and October); and adds in a note: “In addition a stock dividend of 100% was paid during the year.” 1 The Wall Street Journal of *224May 2, 1917, p. 2, quotes the 1917 “High” price for Standard Oil of Kentucky as “375 Ex. Stock Dividend.”
It thus appears that among financiers and investors the distribution of the stock by whichever method effected is called a stock dividend; that the two methods by which accumulated profits are legally retained for corporate purposes and at the same time distributed as dividends are recognized by them to be equivalents; and that the financial results to the corporation and to the stockholders of the two methods are substantially the same — unless a difference results from the application of the federal income tax law.
Mrs. Macomber, a citizen and resident of New York, was, in the year 1916, a stockholder in the Standard Oil Company (of California), a corporation organized under the laws of California and having its principal place of business in that State. During that year she received from the company a stock dividend representing profits earned since March 1, 1913. The dividend was paid by direct issue of the stock to her according to the simple method described above, pursued also by the Indiana and Nebraska companies. In 1917 she was taxed under the federal law on the stock dividend so received at its par value of 1100 a share, as income received during the year 1916. Such a stock dividend is income as distinguished from capital both under the law of New York and under the law of California; because in both States every dividend representing profits is deemed to be income whether paid in cash or in stock. It had been so held in New York, where the question arose as between life-tenant and remainderman, Lowry v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 172 N. Y. 137; Matter of Osborne, 209 N. Y. 450; and also, where the question arose in matters of taxation. People v. Glynn, *225130 App. Div. 332; 198 N. Y. 605. It has been so held in California, where the question appears to have arisen only in controversies between life-tenant and remainder-man. Estate of Duffill, 58 Cal. Dec. 97; 180 California, 748.
It is conceded that if the stock dividend paid to Mrs. Macomber had been made by the more complicated method pursued by the Standard Oil Company of Kentucky, that is, issuing rights to take new stock pro rata and paying to each stockholder simultaneously a dividend in cash sufficient in amount to enable him to pay for this pro rata of new stock to be purchased — the dividend so paid to him would have been taxable as income, whether he retained the cash or whether he returned it to the corporation in payment for his pro rata of new stock. But it is contended that, because the simple method was adopted of having the new stock issued direct to the stockholders as paid-up stock, the new stock is not. to be deemed income, whether she retained it or converted it into cash by sale. If such a different result can flow merely from the difference in the method pursued, it must be because Congress is without power to tax as income of the stockholder either the stock received under the latter method or the proceeds of its sale; for Congress has, by the provisions in the Revenue Act of 1916, expressly declared its purpose to make stock dividends, by whichever method paid, taxable as income.
The Sixteenth Amendment proclaimed February 25, 1913, declares:
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any eensus or enumeration.”
The Revenue Act of September 8, 1916, c. 463, 39 Stat. 756, 757, provided: .
“That the term ‘dividends’ as used in this title shall *226be held to mean any distribution made or ordered to be made by a corporation, . . . out of its earnings or profits accrued since March first, nineteen hundred and thirteen, and payable to its shareholders, whether in cash or in stock of the corporation . . . which stock dividend shall be considered income, to the amount of its cash value.”
Hitherto powers conferred upon Congress by the Constitution have been liberally construed, and have been held to extend to every means appropriate to attain the end sought. In determining the scope of the power the substance of the transaction, not its form has been regarded. Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 304, 326; McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 407, 415; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, 446; Craig v. Missouri, 4 Pet. 410, 433; Jarrolt v. Moberly, 103 U. S. 580, 585, 587; Legal Tender Case, 110 U. S. 421, 444; Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U. S. 53, 58; United States v. Realty Co., 163 U. S. 427, 440, 441, 442; South Carolina v. United States, 199 U. S. 437, 448-9. Is there anything in the phraseology of the Sixteenth Amendment or in the nature of corporate dividends which should lead to a departure from these rules of construction and compel this court to hold, that Congress is powerless to prevent a result so extraordinary as that here contended for by the stockholder?
First: The term “income” when applied to the investment of the stockholder in a corporation, had, before the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment, been commonly understood to mean the returns from time to time received by the stockholder from gains or earnings of the corporation. A dividend received by a stockholder from a corporation may be either in distribution of capital assets or in distribution of profits. Whether it is the one or the other is in no way affected by the medium in which it is paid, nor by the method or means through which the particular thing distributed as a dividend was procured. If the *227dividend is declared payable in cash, the money with which to pay it is ordinarily taken from surplus cash in the treasury. But (if there are profits legally available for distribution and the law under which the company was incorporated so permits) the company may raise the money by discounting negotiable paper; or by selling bonds, scrip or stock of another corporation then in the treasury; or by selling its own bonds, scrip or stock then in the treasury; or by selling its own bonds, scrip or stock issued expressly for that purpose. How the money shall be raised is wholly a matter of financial manage^ment. The manner in which it is raised in no way affects the question whether the dividend received by the stockholder is income or capital; nor can it conceivably affect the question whether it is taxable as income.
Likewise whether a dividend declared payable from profits shall be paid in cash or in some other medium is also wholly a matter of financial management. If some other medium is decided upon, it is also wholly a question of financial management whether the distribution shall be, for instance, in bonds, scrip or stock of another corporation or in issues of its own. And if the dividend is paid in its own issues, why should there be a difference in result dependent upon' whether the distribution was made from such securities then in the treasury or from others to be created and issued by the company expressly for that purpose? So far as the distribution may be made from its own issues of bonds, or preferred stock created expressly for the purpose, it clearly would make no difference in the decision of the question whether the dividend was a distribution of profits, that the securities had to be created expressly for the purpose of distribution. If a dividend paid in securities of that nature represents a distribution of profits Congress may, of course, tax it as income of the stockholder. Is the result different where the security distributed is common stock?
*228Suppose that a corporation having power to buy and sell its own stock, purchases, in the interval between its regular dividend dates, with monies derived from current profits, some of its own common stock as a temporary investment, intending at the time of. purchase to sell it before the next dividend date and to use the proceeds in paying dividends, but later, deeming it inadvisable either to sell this stock or to raise by borrowing the money necessary to pay the regular dividend in cash, declares a dividend payable in this stock: — Can anyone doubt that in such a case the dividend in common stock would be income of the stockholder and constitutionally taxable as such? See Green v. Bissell, 79 Connecticut, 547; Leland v. Hayden, 102 Massachusetts, 542. And would it not likewise be income of the stockholder subject .to taxation if the purpose of the company in buying the stock so distributed had been from the beginning to take it off the market and distribute it among the stockholders as a dividend, and the company actually did so? And proceeding a short step further: Suppose that a corporation decided to capitalize some of its accumulated profits by creating additional common stock and selling the same to raise working capital, but after the stock has been issued and certificates therefor are delivered to the bankers for sale, general financial conditions make it undesirable to market the. stock and the company concludes that it is wiser to husband, for working capital, the cash which it had intended to use in paying stockholders a dividend, and, instead, to pay.the dividend in the common stock which it had planned to sell: Would not the stock so distributed be a distribution of profits — and, hence, when received, be income of the stockholder and taxable as such? If this be conceded, why should it not be equally income of the stockholder, and taxable as such, if the common stock created by capitalizing profits, had been originally created for the express purpose of being dis*229tributed as a dividend to the stockholder who afterwards received it?
Second: It has been said that a dividend .payable in bonds or preferred stock created for the purpose of distributing profits may be income and taxable as such, but that the case is different where- the distribution is in common stock created for that purpose. Various reasons-are assigned for making this distinction. One is that the proportion of the stockholder’s ownership to the aggregate number of the shares of the company is not changed by the distribution.. But that is equally true where the dividend is paid in its bonds or in its preferred stock. Furthermore, neither maintenance nor change in the proportionate ownership of a stockholder in a corporation has any bearing upon the question here involved. Another reason assigned is that the value of the old stock held is reduced approximately by the value of the new stock received, so that the stockholder after receipt of the stock dividend has no more than he had before it was paid. That is equally true whether the dividend be paid in cash or in other property, for instance, bonds, scrip or preferred stock of the company. The.payment from profits of a large cash dividend, and even a small one, .customarily lowers the then market value of stock because the undivided property represented by each share has been correspondingly reduced. The argument which appears to be most strongly urged foi; the stockholders is, that when a stock dividend is made, no portion of the assets of the company is thereby segregated for the stockholder. But does the issue of new bonds or of preferred stock created for use as a dividend result in any segregation of assets for the stockholder? In each case he receives a piece of paper which entitles him to certain rights in the undividid property. Clearly segregation of assets in a physical sense is not an essential of income. The year’s gains of a partner are taxable as income, although there, likewise, no *230segregation of his share in the gains from that of his partners is had.
The objection that there has been no segregation is presented also in another form. It is argued that until there is a segregation, the stockholder cannot know whether he has really received gains; since the gains may be invested in plant or merchandise or other property and perhaps be later lost. But is not this equally trufe of the share of a partner in the year’s profits of the firm or, indeed, of the profits of the individual who is engaged in business alone? And is it not true, also, when dividends are paid in cash? The gains of a business, whether conducted by an individual, by a firm or by a corporation, are ordinarily reinvested in large part. Many a cash dividend honestly declared as a distribution of profits, proves later to have been paid out of capital, because errors in forecast prevent correct ascertainment of values. Until a business adventure has been completely liquidated, it can never be determined with certainty whether there have been profits unless the returns have at least exceeded the capital originally invested. Business men, dealing with the problem practically, fix necessarily periods and rules for determining -whether there-have been' net profits — that is income or gains. They protect thfemselves from being seriously misled by adopting a system of depreciation charges and reserves. Then, they act upon their own determination, whether profits have been made. Congress in legislating has wisely adopted their practices as its own rules of action.
Third: The Government urges that it would have been within the power of Congress to have taxed as income of the stockholder his pro rata share of undistributed profits earned, even if no stock dividend representing it had been paid. Strong reasons may be assigned for such a view. See Collector v. Hubbard, 12 Wall. 1. The undivided share of a partner in the year’s undistributed profits of his firm *231is taxable as income of the partner, although the share in the gain is not evidenced by any action taken by the firm. Why may not the stockholder’s interest in the gains of the company? The law finds no difficulty in disregarding the corporate fiction whenever that is deeftied necessary to attain a just result. Linn & Lane Timber Co. v. United States, 236 U. S. 574; see Morawetz on Corporations, 2d ed., §§227-231; Cook on Corporations, 7th ed., §§663, 664. The stockholder’s interest in the property of the corporation differs, not fundamentally but in form only, from the interest of a partner in the property of the firm. There is much authority for the proposition that, under our law, a partnership or joint stock company is just as distinct and palpable an entity in the idea of the law, as distinguished from the individuals composing it, as is a corporation.1 No reason appears, why Congress, in legislating under a grant of power so comprehensive as that authorizing the levy of an income tax, should be limited by the particular view of the relation of the stockholder to the corporation and its property which may, in the absence of legislation, have been taken by this court. But we have no occasion to decide the question whether Congress might have taxed to the stockholder his undivided share of the corporation’s earnings. For Congress has in this act limited the income tax to that share of the stockholder in the earnings which is, in effect, distributed by means of the stock dividend paid. In other words, to render the stockholder taxable there must be both earnings made and a dividend paid. Neither earnings without dividend — nor a dividend without earnings — -subjects the *232stockholder to taxation under the Revenue Act of 1916.
Fourth: The equivalency of all dividends representing profits, whether paid in cash or in stock, is so complete that serious question of the taxability of stock dividends would probably never have been made, if Congress had undertaken to tax only those dividends which represented profits earned during the year in which the dividend was paid or in the year preceding. But this court, construing liberally not only the constitutional grant of power but also the Revenue Act of 1913, held that Congress might tax, and had taxed, to the stockholder dividends received during the year, although earned by the company long before; and even prior to the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment. Lynch v. Hornby, 247 U. S. 339.1 That rule, if ^discriminatingly applied to all stock dividends representing profits earned, might, in view of corporate practice, have worked considerable hardship, and have raised serious questions. Many corporations, without legally capitalizing any part of their profits, had assigned definitely some part or all of the annual balances remaining after paying the usual cash dividends, to the uses to which permanent capital is ordinarily applied. Some of the corporations doing this, transferred such balances on their books to “Surplus” account,— distinguishing between such permanent “Surplus” and the “Undivided Profits” account. Other corporations, without this formality, had assumed that the annual accumulating balances carried as undistributed profits were to be treated as capital permanently invested in the business. And still others, without definite assumption of any kind, had *233so used undivided profits for capital purposes. To have made the revenue law apply retroactively so as to reach such accumulated profits, if and whenever it should be deemed desirable to capitalize them legally by the issue of additional stock distributed as a dividend to stockholders, would have worked great injustice. Congress endeavored in the Revenue Act of 1916 to guard against any serious hardship which might otherwise have arisen from making taxable stock dividends representing accumulated profits. It did not limit the taxability to stock dividends representing profits earned within the tax year or in the year preceding; but it did limit taxability to such dividends representing profits earned since March 1, 1913. Thereby stockholders were given notice that their share also in undistributed profits accumulating thereafter was at some time to be taxed as income. And Congress sought by § 3 to discourage the postponement of distribution for the illegitimate purpose of evading liability to surtaxes.
Fifth: The decision of this court, that earnings made before the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment but paid out in cash dividend after its adoption were taxable as income of the stockholder, involved a very liberal construction of the Amendment. To hold now that earnings both made, and paid out after the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment cannot be taxed as income of the stockholder, if paid in the form of a stock dividend, involves an exceeding narrow construction of it. As said by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, 446: “To construe the power so as to impair its efficacy, would tend to defeat an object, in the attainment of which the American public took, and justly took, that strong interest which arose from, a full conviction of its necessity.”
No decision heretofore rendered by this court requires us to hold that Congress, in providing for the taxation of *234stock dividends, exceeded the power conferred upon it by the Sixteenth Amendment. The two cases mainly relied upon to show that this'was beyond the power of Congress are Towne v. Eisner, 245 U. S. 418, which involved a question not of constitutional power but of statutory construction, and Gibbons v. Mahon, 136 U. S. 549, which involved a question arising between life-tenant and remainderman. So far as concerns Towne v. Eisner, we have only to bear in mind what was there said (p. 425): “But it is not necessarily true that income means the same thing in the Constitution and the [an] act.” 1 Gibbons v. Mahon is even less an authority for a narrow construction of the power to tax incomes conferred by the Sixteenth Amendment. In that case the court was required to determine how, in the administration of an estate in the District of Columbia, a stock dividend, representing profits, received after the decedent’s death, should be disposed of as between life-tenant and remainderman. The question was in essence: What shall the intention of the testator be presumed to have been? On this question there was great diversity of opinion and practice in the courts of English-speaking countries. Three well-defined rules were then competing for acceptance; two of these involve an arbitrary rule of distribution, the third equitable apportionment. See Cook on Corportions, 7th ed., §§ 552-558.
1. The so-called English rule, declared in 1799, by Brander v. Brander, 4 Ves. Jr. 800, that a dividend rep*235resenting profits, whether in cash, stock or other property, belongs to the life-tenant if it was a regular or ordinary dividend, and belongs to the remainderman if it was an extraordinary dividend.
2. The so-called Massachusetts rule, declared in 1868 by Minot v. Paine, 99 Massachusetts, 101, that a dividend representing profits, whether regular, ordinary or extraordinary, if in cash belongs to the life-tenant, and if in stock belongs to the remainderman.
3. The so-called Pennsylvania rule declared in 1857 by Earp’s Appeal, 28 Pa. St. 368, that where a stock dividend is paid, the court shall inquire into the circumstances under which the fund had been earned and accumulated out of which-the dividend, whether a regular, an ordinary, or an extraordinary one, was paid. If it finds that the stock dividend was paid out of profits earned since the decedent’s death, the stock dividend belongs to the life-tenant; if the court finds that the stock dividend was paid from capital or from profits earned before the decedent’s death, the stock dividend belongs to the remainder-man.
This court adopted in Gibbons v. Mahon as the rule of administration for the District of Columbia the so-called Massachusetts rule, the opinion being delivered in 1890 by Mr. Justice Gray. Since then the same question has come up for decision in many of the States. The so-called Massachusetts rule, although approved by this court, has found favor in only a few States. The so-called Pennsylvania rule, on the other hand, has been adopted since by so many of the States (including New York and California), that it has come to be known as the “American Rule.” Whether, in view of these facts and the practical results of the operation of the two rules as shown by the experience of the thirty years which have elapsed since the decision in Gibbons v. Mahon, it might be desirable for this court to reconsider the question there decided, as *236some other courts have done (see 29 Harvard Law Review, 551), we have no occasion to consider in this case. For, as this court there pointed out (p. 560), the question involved was one “between the owners of successive interests in particular shares,” and not, as in Bailey v. Railroad Co., 22 Wall. 604, a question “between the corporation and the government, and [which] depended upon the terms of a statute carefully framed to prevent'corporations from evading payment of the tax upon their earnings.”
We have, however, not merely argument, we have examples which should convince us that “there is no inherent, necessary and immutable reason why stock dividends should always be treated as capital.” Tax Commissioner v. Putnam, 227 Massachusetts, 522, 533. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts h;,s steadfastly adhered, despite ever-renewed protest, to the rule that every stock dividend is, as between life-tenant and remainderman, capital and not income. But in construing the Massachusetts Income Tax Amendment, which is substantially identical with the Federal Amendment, that court held that the legislature was thereby empowered to levy an income tax upon stock dividends representing profits. The courts of England have, with some relaxation, adhered to their rule that every extraordinary dividend is, as between life-tenant and remainderman, to be deemed capital. But in 1913 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council held that a stock dividend representing accumulated profits was taxable like an ordinary cash dividend, Swan Brewery Co., Ltd., v. Rex, [1914] A. C. 231. In dismissing the appeal these words of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia were quoted (p. 236), which show that the facts involved were identical with those in the case at bar: “Had the company distributed the 101,450£ among the shareholders and. had the shareholders repaid such sums to the company as the price of the 81,160 new shares, the duty on the 101,450£ *237would clearly have been payable. Is not this virtually the effect of what was actually done? I think it is.”
Sixth: If stock dividends representing profits are held exempt from taxation under the Sixteenth Amendment, the owners of the most successful businesses in America will, as the facts in this case illustrate, be able to escape taxation on a large part of what is actually their income. So far as their profits are represented by stock received as dividends they will pay these taxes not upon their income but only upon the income of their income. That such a result was intended by the people of the United States when adopting the Sixteenth Amendment is inconceivable. Our sole duty is to ascertain their intent as therein expressed.1 In terse, comprehensive language befitting the Constitution, they empowered Congress “to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived.” They intended to include thereby everything which by reasonable understanding1 can fairly be regarded as income. That stock dividends representing profits are so regarded, not only by the plain people but by investors and financiers, and by most of the courts of the country, is shown, beyond peradventure, by their acts and by their utterances. It seems to me clear, therefore, that Congress possesses the power which it exercised to make dividends representing profits, taxable as income, whether the medium in which the dividend is paid be cash or stock, and that it may define, as it has done, what dividends re pre*238senting profits shall be deemed income.. It surely is not clear that the enactment exceeds the power granted by the Sixteenth Amendment. And, as this court has so often said, the high prerogative of declaring an act of Congress invalid) should never be exercised except in a clear case.1 “It is but a decent respect due to the wisdom, the integrity and the patriotism of the legislative body, by which any law is passed, to presume in favor of its validity, until its violation of the Constitution is proved beyond all' reasonable doubt.” Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213, 270.
Mr. Justice Clarke concurs in this opinion.

 Moodys, p. 1544; Commercial and Financial Chronicle, Vol. 94, p. 831; Vol. 98, pp. 1005, 1076.

 Moodys, p. 1548; Commercial and Financial Chronicle, Vol. 94, p. 771; Vol. 96, p. 1428; Vol. 97, p. 1434; Vol. 98, p. 1541.

 Moodys, p. 1547; Commercial and Financial Chronicle, Vol. 97, pp. 1589, 1827, 1903; Vol. 98, pp. 76, 457; Vol. 103, p. 2348. Poor’s Manual of Industrials (1918), p. 2240, in giving the “Comparative *224Income Account” of the company describes the 1914 dividend as “Stock Dividend paid (200%) — $2,000,000”; and describes the 1917 dividend as “$3,000,000 special cash dividend.”

 See “Some Judicial Myths,” by Francis M. Burdick, 22 Harvard Law Review, 393, 394-396; The Firm as a Legal Person, by. William Hamilton Cowles, 57 Cent. L. J., 343, 348; The Separate Estates of Non-Bankrupt Partners, by J. D. Brannan, 20 Harvard Law Review, 589-592; compare Harvard Law Review, Vol. 7, p. 426; Vol. 14, p. 222; Vol. 17, p. 194.

 The hardship supposed to have resulted from such a decision has been removed in the Revenue Act of 1916, as amended, by providing in § 31 (b) that such cash dividends shall thereafter be exempt from taxation, if before they are made, all earnings made since February 28, 1913, shall have been distributed. Act of October 3, 1917, e. 63, § 1211, 40 Stat. 338; Act of February 24, 1919, c. 18, § 201 (b), 40 Stat. 1059.

 Compare Rugg, C. J., in Tax Commissioner v. Putnam, 227 Massachusetts, 522, 533: “However strong such an argument might be when urged as to the interpretation of a statute, it is not of prevailing force as to the broad considerations involved in the interpretation of an amendment to the Constitution adopted under the conditions preceding and attendant upon the ratification of the Forty-fourth Amendment.”

 Compare Rugg, C. J., Tax Commissioner v. Putnam, 227 Massachusetts, 522, 524: “It is a grant from the sovereign people and not ths exercise of a delegated power. It is a statement of general principles and not a specification of details. Amendments to such a charter of government ought to be construed in the same spirit and according to the same rules as the original. It is to be interpreted as the Constitution of a State and not as a statute or an ordinary piece of legislation. Its words must be given a construction adapted to carry into effect its purpose.”

 “It is our duty, when required in the regular course of judicial proceedings, to declare an act of Congress void if not within the legislative power of the United States; but this declaration should never be made except in a cléar case. Every possible presumption is in favor of the validity of a statute, and this continues until the contrary is shown beyond a rational doubt. One branch of the government cannot encroach on the domain of another without danger. The safety of our institutions depends in no small degree on a strict observance of ¡his salutary rule.” Sinking-Fund Cases, 99 U. S. 700, 718 (1878). See also Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 457, 531 (1870); Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U. S. 82, 96 (1879). See American Doctrine of Constitutional Law, by James B. Thayer, 7 Harvard Law Review, 129, 142.
“With the exception of the extraordinary decree rendered in the Dred Scott Case, ... all of the acts or the portions of the acts of Congress invalidated by the courts before 1868 related to the organization of courts. Denying the power of Congress to make notes legal tender seems tó be the first departure from this rule.” Haines, American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy, p. 288. The first legal tender decision was overruled in part two years later (1870), Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 457; and again in 1883, Legal Tender Case, 110 U. S. 421.