Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/837

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STATE EX REL v. WALLACE
813

as to make them harmonize with the act of Congress dealing with the same subject as construed by the federal courts. First National Bank of St. Joseph v. St. Joseph, 46 Mich. 526, 9 N. W. 838. It follows that, in the light of the decisions of the United States Supreme Court construing the act of Congress with reference to the taxation of national bank stock, the Money and Credits Act of 1917 must be held to have embraced the stock of national banks as a credit; otherwise such stock would have been entirely exempted from taxation.

Even if it be assumed that the Money and Credits Act of 1917 might properly be construed, in connection with the concurrent legislation, as excluding bank stock from its operation, still it is manifest beyond a doubt that the repeal act of the special session of 1919, which contains affirmative language of exemption, cannot possibly be so construed as to render bank stock liable to taxation at the local rate, while credits and stocks generally are not so liable. The repeal act says affirmatively that moneys and credits, “including bonds and stocks,” are “hereby exempted” from taxation ; but it is provided that the income therefrom shall be taxable, and that “stocks and bonds” shall be subject to taxation in the manner provided by chap. 222 of the Laws of 1919 (the capital stock tax). The term “bonds and stocks” as used in this act clearly embraces, by its express language, stocks from which income may be derived, and such as may be subject to the capital stock tax under chap. 222 of the Laws of 1919. This gives it a broader meaning than mere “corporate excess” listed as “bonds or stocks” under subdivision 23 of § 2103, for such property is neither “capital stock” nor income producing. The Income Tax Law (chap. 224, Laws of 1919) apparently taxes the individual upon income derived from bank stock, and state banks are liable for the capital stock tax to the same extent as other corporations. Hence bank stocks are within the class to which the taxes that were saved out of the exemption are applicable. There was no occasion to save these enumerated taxes unless it was conceived that the exemption of “bonds and stocks” in the fore part of the act would have rendered bonds and stocks generally immune from all taxes. Clearly the term “bonds and stocks” was used in this act in its ordinary sense, and there is not the slightest ground for implying an exception of bank stock. Where the legislature has spoken thus clearly it would be nothing short of judicial legislation for us to write the exception into the statute. Prior to the passage of this act (chap. 62 of the Laws of the Special Ses-