141 Ga. 658 | Ga. | 1914
(After stating the foregoing facts.) An ordinance passed by the municipal authorities of Cordele, which laid a tax of $100 on each telegraph company doing business in, the city, covering both the interstate and the intrastate business of 'a company which had accepted and was acting under the act of Congress of July 24, 1866 (Rev. Stat. U. S. §§ 5263-5268), was held invalid. Postal Telegraph-Gable Co. v. Mayor and Council of Cordele, 139 Ga. 126 (76 S. E. 744, 31 Ann. Cas. (1914A) 984). Having held that the ordinance was invalid for the reason that it interfered with interstate business of the company, it was not deemed necessary to go further and decide whether it was also unreasonable. After this decision was rendered, the municipal council passed an ordinance similar to that then under consideration,
We recognize the rule that municipal councils have large discretion in regard to what is a reasonable occupation tax, and that their determination will not be declared unreasonable by the courts unless it is clearly so. They are not obliged in each case to make .an occupation tax a graded one, though they may make reasonable •classifications, resting on some legitimate basis. It is not necessary to measure a business tax according to the receipts of the smallest among a number of dealers engaged in that kind of business; but the particular business within the municipality as a whole should be considered, and the conditions affecting it. Mayor and Aidermen of Savannah v. Cooper, 131 Ga. 670, 676 (63 S. E. 138). The statement in the headnote case of Southern Express Company v. Ty Ty, 141 Ga. 421 (81 S. E. 114), seems to go further than we meed go in this ease, and does not discuss the conditions to be considered in declaring a municipal tax unreasonable and void. In City of Troy v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 164 Ala. 482 (51 So. 523, 27 L. R. A. (N. S.) 627), it was held that a license tax of