154 N.Y. 122 | NY | 1897
The defendants, as commissioners of taxes and assessments in the city of New York, in the year 1894, assessed the relator, a savings bank, incorporated and existing under the laws of the state of Connecticut, in the sum of $43,000 as a part of its surplus invested in bank stocks in the city of New York. The court at Special Term reversed the action of the assessors and set aside the assessment as unauthorized. The controversy in that court seems to have turned upon the question whether the deposits in savings banks were debts, within the meaning of the statute, which can be offset against assessments for personal property. It was held that such deposits were debts, and that as they exceeded the assessment, the so-called surplus of the relator was not taxable. But upon an appeal by the defendants to the Appellate Division, the order of the Special Term was reversed and the assessment reinstated. The learned Appellate Division agreed with the Special Term that deposits in savings banks were debts that could be used to offset or extinguish assessments upon personal property; but that this principle did not apply to any surplus existing after all the liabilities and obligations of the bank had been deducted from the assets. It was supposed that the case of People ex rel. Savings Bank of New London v. Coleman
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The obligations of the relator to its depositors must be ascertained from the provisions of the law of Connecticut, since it is under that law that it was organized, and that its contracts and obligations must be measured. We are not concerned with the question whether, under the laws of this state in regard to savings banks, such surplus is taxable or not. There are provisions in the statutes of this state which seem to indicate that surplus profits must, after reaching a certain amount and at certain times, be distributed to depositors. It is not, however, necessary in this case to consider the scope or meaning of these provisions. But we do not see how, under the language of the Connecticut statutes, the relator's surplus, as it is called, can be treated otherwise than as an obligation due to depositors, and, hence, as a part of the deposits, in ascertaining the liability of the relator to taxation upon the stock in question.
For these reasons we think that the order of the Appellate Division should be reversed and that of the Special Term affirmed, with costs to the relator in all the courts.
All concur.
Order reversed. *128