111 Ga. 162 | Ga. | 1900
Section 72 of the charter of Macon provides : “ That the mayor and council shall have power to license, regulate, and control all hotels and public houses within the city; also, to regulate all butcher-pens and slaughter-houses within the corporation, and to remove the same if they shall become nuisances or injurious to the health of the city. They shall also have power to license drays, hacks, and other vehicles used for business purposes, and to regulate the same. They shall also have full power to regulate and control all livery-stables, pumps, barrooms, restaurants, places of amusement, telegraph, telephone, and electric companies, all gas, water, and railroad companies doing business or seeking to do business within said city.” Section 79 confers upon the mayor and council “power to levy and collect a tax . . upon all persons exercising within the city any profession, trade, calling, or business of any nature whatever;” and section 84 declares: “That-said mayor and council shall have authority to levy and collect a license tax . . upon all persons exercising any profession, trade, or calling in said city, when not prohibited from so doing
There is a very wide difference between a power to license an occupation with a view to regulation and a power to tax it for the sole purpose of raising revenue. “A power to license, when specifically given in the charter of a city, is . . a police power. The exaction of license fees for revenue purposes is the exercise of the power of taxation.” North Hudson Railway Co. v. Hoboken, 41 N. J. Law, 71. As will have been perceived, the General Assembly in the 72d section of the charter of Macon dealt expressly with the question of empowering the municipal authorities to license, regulate, and control occupations carried on within the city, and, in so doing, specifically, enumerated the various callings to which their powers in these respects should apply. Among them we find no mention of money
As the purpose of such taxation is to raise money for the' support of the municipal government, and as the power'of taxing is given exclusively for the accomplishment of this needful purpose, ordinances adopted in pursuance of this power must tend to effectuate, and not to defeat, the end in view. Cooley’s
On the same line is the case of Hirschfield v. City of Dallas, 29 Tex. Ct. App. 242, wherein it was held that a tax “ laid for the double purpose of regulation and revenue must be grounded in both the police and taxing power; but the grant of a power to tax will not authorize the imposition of a burden in its nature and purpose prohibitory.” White, P. J., expressed the opinion that, under its broad charter power to “license, tax, and regulate” occupations, “the city was empowered not only to exact a reasonable license fee and license for the purpose of regulating the occupation under its police power, but to impose, if it desired to do so, a reasonable tax for purposes of revenue on the pursuit of the occupation.” Page 245. The word “reasonable,” twice used in the clause just quoted, is of the utmost significance in arriving at its meaning. It is true that, on the same page, this learned judge does say that “Some occupations are so injurious that a tax prohibitory entirely would be justifiable,” and the same idea has been advanced by Judge Cooley. After stating that license fees may be imposed (1) for regulation, (2) for revenue, (3) to give monopolies, and (4) for prohibition, and declaring that “the third purpose is inadmissible in any free government,” he says: “The fourth purpose
Before concluding, it is proper to remark that the question above discussed widely differs from that which might arise respecting the validity of a tariff imposed by Congress ostensibly for revenue, but really for protection and in effect prohibitory, or upon the constitutionality of a State statute professing merely to tax a particular occupation but in fact designed to destroy it. We may, for the purposes of this case, grant to the fullest extent the authority of the lawmaking power of the Nation or of any State to respectively enact laws of the nature above in
Judgment reversed.