50 Conn. 558 | Conn. | 1883
On October 1st, 1881, the chartered capital of the Travelers Insurance Company of Hartford stood at •$600,000, divided into six thousand shares. Not now regarding this capital as a liability, it had a surplus of assets beyond debts amounting to $l,435,957-j^2g, a portion of which was then invested in real estate in other states than this, on which it had paid taxes assessed during the previous year. Another portion was invested in real estate in this state. Neither the money paid in as capital nor the income therefrom can now be distinguished from the accumulated profits of the business, and therefore cannot be traced into the investment in real estate. Still another portion was invested in bonds of the United States, which were exempt from taxation. The Session Laws of 1877, chap. 47, § 1, provide that “shares of the capital stock of any bank, national banking association, or insurance, turnpike, bridge, or plank road company, owned by any resident of this state, shall be set in his list at their market value, in the town in which he may reside ; but so much of the capital of any such company as may be invested in real estate, on which it is assessed and pays a tax, the assessed value
First, as to the claimed exemption upon bonds of the United States. The tax is not upon the property of the corporation; it is explicitly upon the shares; that is, upon the right of the shareholder to receive his proper portion of net profits earned by the exercise of the corporate franchise, and of assets remaining after payment of debts upon dissolution. That he is not the owner of any portion of the government bonds or of any other property held by the corporation; that his right is a distinct and independent property in himself, quite separate from the ownership by the corporation of its assets; and that the state may assess a tax against him upon it at its full value, notwithstanding the fact that the corporation is the owner of untaxable government securities, is so firmly established by judicial determination that it is not now to be considered an open question. Van Allen v. Assessors, 3 Wallace, 573; People v. Commissioners, 4 id., 244; National Bank v. Commonwealth, 9 id., 359.
Second, as to the exemption of real estate taxed in other states. The question here is, what is exempted by the statute ? The words are, “ so much of the capital of any such company as may be invested in real estate on which it is assessed and pays a tax; ” and there is no limitation as to its location. The defendant insists that whenever the legislature uses the expression “real estate” in connection with the subject of taxation, it is by virtue of an unvarying rule of interpretation to be held as if there were added to it the words, “in this state.” But, first, these are not words of taxation, they are words of exemption; they
Therefore, in this matter of granting exemption, the legislature has not so long, so often, and so invariably, used the words “ real estate ” in instances in which we have been made judicially to know that it intended only real estate in this state, as that the suggested rule of interpretation has the force of a statute. We think that the plaintiff is entitled to the exemption precisely as the legislature has written it.
The corporation had assets beyond debts to a certain amount. This surplus stands as its capital in the sense in which that word is used in the statute under consideration; presumably the market value of its shares rests upon it; a portion of it is invested in real estate paying taxes in this state and in other states. The legislature intended to
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
