18 Ga. App. 734 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1916
The defendant was convicted in the recorder’s court of the City of Athens under a city ordinance which made it an offense for any person to carry on the business of a junk-dealer without first paying an occupation tax or city license. The undis
Section 994 of the Civil Code provides that certain persons are entitled to be exempt from the payment of taxes required by section 946. Admitting, for the sole purpose of this argument (this question not being here passed upon), that the accused was one of the persons entitled under the provisions of section 994 to exemption from certain taxes, it is clear that the provisions of section 946 apply to peddlers and traveling vendors only; and it is equally clear, from the undisputed evidence in the instant case, that the accused was carrying on a business of buying and selling merchandise, commonly called “junk,” on Foundry street in the city of Athens, and that accordingly he was not a “peddler and traveling vendor” within the meaning of the statute. Wrought Iron Range Co. v. Johnson, 84 Ga. 754 (11 S. E. 233, 8 L. R. A. 273); Kimmel v. Americus, 105 Ga. 694 (31 S. E. 623); Singleton v. State, 14 Ga. App. 527 (81 S. E. 596), and cases therein cited. It is also apparent that even if the defendant had been one of the persons entitled under section 994 of the Civil Code to the exemptions therein specified, and, in addition, had been a “peddler and traveling vendor,” he still would have been (under the rulings in Latham v. Stewart, 140 Ga. 188, 78 S. E. 812, and Butler v. Stewart, 140 Ga. 196, 78 S. E. 816, approved and reaffirmed in Ghatolis v. Phillips, 142 Ga. 456, 83 S. E. 106), liable for the city license-tax as a junk-dealer, for the reason that “junk” is not included in any of the things specially enumerated in section 946, and is not comprehended by the words “or of any other kind of merchandise or commodity whatsoever (whether herein enumerated or not).” In the three cases just mentioned, the majority of the Supreme Court, in construing this code section, held that under the doctrine or rule of construction generally known as the