67 Miss. 644 | Miss. | 1890
delivered the opinion of the court.
The establishment at Meridian is a sewing-machine agency within
The legislature in dealing with the subject of privileges, taxed them in reference to the known and usual course of business, and the burden imposed cannot be evaded by changes in the mere form of transacting the business intended to be taxed, or by parcelling out among several the duties usually pertaining to one.
The fact that the building in which the agency was established was rented by the Singer Sewing Machine Company; that the agency was established by Weeks who lived in Mobile; that a lady was employed to keep the account of stock and to charge up the machines delivered to those who were employed to sell them; that these agents made their first reports directly to the office in Mobile, and that the accounts were returned to Mitchell, the appellant, for collection, are insufficient to negative the existence of a taxable agency in this state, or to relieve .those actually engaged in its operation from the duty of paying the tax imposed by law. The effort to so divide the responsibility of its management as to leave no one liable to indictment for failure to pay the tax is in.vain. The danger is rather that each of the numerous managers may be held to be indictable than that either may escape.
Weeks having escaped conviction, it is not necessary to express an opinion relative to his guilt or innocence; the conviction of the appellant is supported by the evidence, and the judgment is,
Affirmed.