Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/625

JURISDICTION TO TAX 5^9 of the second sovereign to tax is not abridged by the fact that a tax is due to the other.^ . In the United States the power of a state to tax has been greatly affected by the Constitution of the United States. With constitu- tional questions as such we are not here concerned. In so far, however, as the Constitution is merely confining a state within the boundaries of its jurisdiction, a decision based upon the Con- stitution is quite in point on the question, how far does the juris- diction of the state extend. In fact, the interpretation of several constitutional limitations, and particularly of the Fourteenth Amendment in its bearing on the taxing power, is merely an ex- position of the legal requirement of jurisdiction to tax. When this is the case, decisions upon the constitutionality of tax laws will be freely used as authorities in determining the legal juris- diction to tax. I. Personal Tax A sovereign may impose upon everyone domiciled within his territory a personal tax, which is *'the burthen imposed by gov- ernment upon its own citizens for the benefits which that govern- ment affords by its protection and its laws." ^° Any domiciled person is subject to this tax, though he may be an ahen" or a corporation.^^ The tax may be a poll-tax of fixed amount, a tax based to some extent upon wealth,^^ or a tax payable in labor.^* No sovereign may lay a personal tax upon a person or corpora- tion not domiciled within his territory.^^ For this reason he can- not impose upon such a nonresident a personal obligation to pay a tax levied upon property within the territory. Land or a chattel within the territory is subject, as has been seen, to the taxing » Spaulding Mfg. Co. v. Kendall, 19 Okla. 345, 91 Pac. 1031 (1907). " Green, C. J., in State v. Ross, 23 N. J. L. (3 Zab.) 517, 521 (1852). " Frantz's Appeal, 52 Pa. 367 (1866); Kuntz :;. Davidson County, 6 Lea (Tenn.) 65. « The Delaware Railroad Tax, 18 Wall. (U. S.) 206 (1873). " The Delaware Railroad Tax, 18 Wall. (U. S.) 206, 231 (1873), per Field, J.: "The State may impose taxes upon the corporation as an entity existing under its laws. . . . And the manner in which its value shall be assessed and the rate of taxation, how- ever arbitrary or capricious, 'are mere matters of legislative discretion." See also Ehner, J., in State v. Bentley, 23 N. J. L. (3 Zab.) 532 (1852). " On Yuen Hai Co. v. Ross, 8 Sawy. (U. S.) 384, 14 Fed. 338 (1882). " Ibid.; Boston Investment Co. v. Boston, 158 Mass. 461, 33 N. E. 580 (1893); State V. Ross,'23 N. J. L. (3 Zab.) 517 (1852).