12 A.2d 920 | Pa. | 1940
This is an appeal by the Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Company, trustee under the will of Sophia Dixon Alison, from the decree of the Orphans' Court sustaining exceptions of the City and County of Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to an adjudication. The decedent, a resident of Philadelphia, died possessed of bonds of two foreign corporations, doing business in Pennsylvania, whose treasurers reside outside the State. Claims were presented at the audit of the executor's account by the City of Philadelphia, for a personal property *196
tax on bonds assessed under the provisions of the Act of June 17, 1913, P. L. 507, Sec. 1, and its supplements, 72 PS Sec. 4821, and by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, for a personal property tax assessed by virtue of the Act of June 22, 1935, P. L. 414, Sec. 3, as amended by the Act of July 17, 1936, P. L. 51,
The County's claim to the tax is based upon section 1 of the Act of 1913, which imposes a tax of four mills upon certain enumerated items of personal property for county purposes, among them being "all loans issued by any corporation created or formed under the laws of this Commonwealth or of the United States or any other state or government." It is accountant's position that no tax can be collected under section 1, because section 17 of the act (
The mere fact that bonds of foreign corporations are listed among the obligations in section 17 does not ipso facto remove them from the application of section 1. Section 1 exempts only such obligations as are "made taxable" by section 17. In the case of the bonds here in question, no tax can be collected from the corporations, and such being the case the bonds cannot be considered as having been "made taxable." This phrase as used in the act means not only imposition of the tax but, in addition, the ability to enforce liability therefor.
To adopt accountant's view would mean that these bonds would go tax free and an unjust discrimination between the bonds of the various domestic and foreign corporations would result. Surely the legislature never so intended.
The Commonwealth's claim to the tax is based upon section 3 of the Acts of 1935 and 1936. These acts expressly provided that they were not to have any effect on the Act of 1913 and its amendments. Section 3 of these acts is substantially the same as section 1 of the 1913 Act. Section 19 of the Act of 1935 and section 18 of the Act of 1936 (
Decree affirmed at appellant's cost.