153 A. 559 | Pa. | 1930
This appeal by the Baltimore Philadelphia Steamboat Company, a Maryland corporation, is from the judgment of the lower court holding it liable for city and school taxes on its wharf in the Delaware River at Philadelphia. The wharf is of the width of eighty feet and extends into the river a distance of five hundred and *367
fifty-eight feet and its assessed value is $103,000. The property is known as Pier 3, South Delaware Avenue, and is essential to the conduct of defendant's business as a carrier of passengers and freight. Appellant paid city and school taxes on this property for very many years down to 1928, when it secured from the Pennsylvania Public Service Commission a certificate of public convenience as a common carrier on the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Chester, both in this State. Thereupon, it claimed exemption on the ground that it paid a capital stock tax and was therefore exempt from local taxation. It is settled, by a multitude of authorities (of which Conoy Twp. v. York Haven Co.,
From an examination of the relevant statutes and decisions, it appears, however, that the trial court properly rejected this contention. For, assuming that appellant is a quasi public corporation, like a railroad company, and as such prima facie entitled to exemption from local taxation (Schuylkill Co. v. Citizens Gas Co.,
Section 3 of the Act of January 4, 1859, P. L. 828, provides: "That all real estate situated in said city [Pittsburgh], owned or possessed by any railroad company, shall be and is hereby made subject to taxation for said purposes the same as other real estate in said city." Thereunder, it was held, in P. R. R. Co. v. Pittsburgh,
The certificate of public convenience from the public service commission might authorize its traffic between the cities and protect it from undue competition, but adds nothing else to its charter powers and does not protect its wharf from local taxation. It may be worthy of note that the Act of April 17, 1889, P. L. 35, authorizing foreign navigation corporations to hold real estate in this Commonwealth, expressly provides that such real estate shall not be exempt from local taxation.
We will not now consider the remote possibility of the sale of the wharf for taxes. See Pittsburgh L. E. R. R. v. Allegheny Co.,
The judgment is affirmed at the cost of appellant. *370