74 A. 180 | N.H. | 1909
The plaintiffs, engaged in the manufacture of wood-pulp and paper in Vermont, own land in Walpole which they use as a yard for storing logs, lumber, coal, and wood used in their manufacturing business. April 1, they were taxed for the *321 value of the logs then on hand in the yard, under section 16, chapter 56, Public Statutes. The logs were raw material of their manufactured product; and they claim they should be taxed only for the average value of logs stored by them in the yard during the year, as stock in trade, under clause 6, section 7, chapter 55, Public Statutes, which, under the head "personal estate liable to be taxed," includes "stock in trade, whether of merchants, shopkeepers, mechanics, or tradesmen, employed in their trade or business, reckoning the same at the average value thereof for the year," and provides that "for purposes of taxation, raw materials and manufactures of any manufactory, wood, timber, logs, and lumber, manufactured or otherwise, if exceeding fifty dollars in value, . . . shall be deemed stock in trade." Upon the facts, the superior court ruled that the logs were taxable as stock in trade and granted an abatement. The only question argued is whether the logs were taxable as stock in trade, or under the following provision: "Wood, bark, timber, logs, and lumber, manufactured or unmanufactured, exceeding fifty dollars in value, shall be taxed at its full value in the town where it is on the first day of April." P.S., c. 56, s. 16.
It has been often remarked that "many clauses of the statutes, which, taken separately and literally, would make some property taxable twice or thrice, are not to be taken separately and literally, but are to be understood as subjecting the property they describe to single taxation only, and as designed, by their varied and comprehensive descriptions, to prevent property escaping single taxation." Conn. Valley Lumber Co. v. Monroe,
The suggestion that the plaintiffs do not manufacture within this state, as a reason why they are not taxable for stock in trade, has not been insisted upon. Winkley v. Newton,
Defendants' exception overruled.
All concurred.