Court Opinion

ID: 9757475
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:42:06.08171+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:39.743039
License: Public Domain

*507Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Bell:
The Personal Property Tax Act of June 17, 1913, §1, P. L. 507, as amended, imposes a tax upon all personal property of the classes hereinafter enumerated —“all mortgages;* all moneys owing by solvent debtors, whether by promissory note, or penal or single bill, bond or judgment; ... all loans issued by any corporation . . . including . . . loans secured by bonds or any other form of certificate or evidence of indebtedness . . .”. The question here involved: Is a trust mortgage subject to the tax; or are the bonds issued under the trust mortgage indenture and held by various individual bond owners subject to the tax?
The first and most important class of personal property taxed is “all mortgages”. “All mortgages” means “all mortgages” — it would be impossible to find clearer or more comprehensive language. The majority point out that later on in the same section the statute also taxes “all moneys owing by solvent debtors whether by . . . bond”; but fails to add or note “. . . all loans issued by any corporation . . . including . . . loans secured by bonds . . .”. The Act is not skillfully drawn and obviously attempts to catch and include in the tax all personal property mentioned. If there be, as there seems to be, some overlapping or duplication it would appear to primarily concern bonds; and the majority could if necessary have just as reasonably and more appropriately construed the meaning of “bonds”, to bonds not heretofore mentioned or bonds evidencing a loan or debt not otherwise taxed.
Furthermore, this particular mortgage contained an express covenant to pay the principal and interest so that it was not like the ordinary mortgage which usually accompanies a bond given in connection with a real *508estate loan. This mortgage (if it be material) is much more like a mortgage against which participation certificates are issued and which was held to be subject to the tax in Cumberland County v. Lemoyne Trust Co., 318 Pa. 85, 97, 98, 178 A. 32. In that case the Court said: “. . . it would seem that mortgages of the type involved would be taxable in the hands of the trust company even though the certificate holders were individuals resident outside the county or even outside the State: Com. v. Phila. Mortgage & Trust Co., 15 Dauphin 96, (appealed to the Supreme Court to No. 20, May Term, 1912, and non prossed). ‘Property held in trust should be assessed to the trustee where he resides’: Guthrie v. Ry., 158 Pa. 433.
“We find no merit in the contention that the tax should be assessed against the individual holders. As we have stated, the Act of 1913, section 1, seems manifestly to make the mortgages taxable in the hands of the trust company. Further, a consideration of the facility of administering the Act of 1913 seems to require assessment of the tax against the trust company. . . . The taxing authority would experience great difficulty in ascertaining the identity and residence of the various holders of the certificates. To assess the tax against the holders of the certificates seems contrary to the spirit and purpose of the various acts, including the Act of 1913, which require the recorder to obtain accurately the residence of all persons to whom interest is payable on recorded securities and to forward periodically such information to the taxing authority.”
Even if the Cumberland County v. Lemoyne Trust Co. case, supra, were not controlling, the fact remains that it is the province and the duty of a court to construe and not to reform a tax statute. Where the language of a tax act is clear, a court has no right to ig*509nore it and to substitute for the clear and mandatory language of the statute its guess as to the supposed, but unexpressed, legislative intent.
Section 51 of Art. IV of the Statutory Construction Act of May 28, 1937, P. L. 1019-, clearly answers the majority opinion: “When the words of a law are clear and free from all ambiguity, the letter of it is not to be disregarded under the pretext of pursuing its spirit”. No matter in what spirit the act is approached you cannot get away from its clear and unambiguous language —“All mortgages”; and that clearly means “all mortgages”, including mortgages held by an active trustee for various bondholders.
For these reasons I would reverse the decree of the court below.

 Italics throughout, ours.