Court Opinion

ID: 5603514
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-11 03:35:41.847441+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:36:51.891316
License: Public Domain

Powell, J.,
specially concurring. I concur, because obedience to the spirit of the binding precedent of Miller v. Shropshire, 124 Ga. 829 (53 S. E. 335), forbids that I should do otherwise. My personal judgment has never yielded assent to the principle of that case; for, if it means anything, it means that the State, by *766taxing a noxious occupation, gives such countenance to it as to amount to the State’s consent for it to be conducted, free from penalties which otherwise would ensue. I have always thought that the better view was expressed by Judge Cooley in Youngblood v. Sexton, 32 Mich. 406 (20 Am. Rep. 664). I quote his language: “The idea that the State lends its countenance to any particular traffic by taxing it seems to us to rest upon a very transparent fallacy. It certainly overlooks or disregards some ideas that always must underlie taxation. Taxes are not favors; they are burdens; they are necessary, it is true, to the existence of the government, but they are not the less burdens, and are only submitted to because of the necessity. It is deemed advisable to make careful provision to preclude these burdens, becoming needlessly oppressive; but it is conceded by all the authorities, that under some circumstances they may be carried to an extent that will be ruinous to individuals. It would be a remarkable proposition,' under such circumstances, that a thing is sanctioned and countenanced by the government when this burden, which may prove disastrous, is imposed upon it, while, on the other hand, it is frowned upon and condemned when the burden is withhold. It is safe to predict that if such were the legal doctrine, any citizen would prefer to be visited with the untaxed frowns of government rather than with those testimonials of approval which are represented by the demands of the tax-gatherer. It may be supposed that some idea of special protection is involved when a business is taxed; taxation and protection being reciprocal. If the tax upon any particular thing was the consideration for the protection given to the owner in respect to it, this might be so; but the maxim of reciprocity in taxation has no such meaning.”