Slack v. Tucker & Co.
Supreme Court of the United States
Error to the Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts. Tucker & Co., partners, sued, in the said court, Slack, collector of internal revenue in the city of Boston, to recover the amount of certain taxes paid by them under protest, and which they alleged to have been illegally assessed. The court, having tried the cause without a jury, held the tax illegal and a recovery was had. This writ of error was brought by the collector to reverse the judgment.
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Error to the Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts. Tucker & Co., partners, sued, in the said court, Slack, collector of internal revenue in the city of Boston, to recover the amount of certain taxes paid by them under protest, and which they alleged to have been illegally assessed. The court, having tried the cause without a jury, held the tax illegal and a recovery was had. This writ of error was brought by the collector to reverse the judgment. The tax was assessed against Tucker & Co. as “ wholesale dealers” under the seventy-ninth section of the Internal Revenue Act of June…
1Opinion of the CourtJustice Bradley
The general meaning of the act of Congress in the passages under consideration is sufficiently clear. Congress evidently intended to tax as “wholesale dealers” as well those who sold goods as commission merchants as those who sold on their own account; always excepting manufacturers, selling at the place of manufacture, or by sample at their principal office and place of business. The intention is equally evident to tax as “commercial brokers” those who, as brokers merely, negotiated sales or purchases for others, and not in their own names nor on their own account.
¥e are clearly of opinion…
2Cited by3 opinions
- American Sugar Refining Co. v. McGheeSupreme Court of Georgia · 1895
- Slack v. Tucker & CSupreme Court of the United States · 1875
- Lysle Milling Co. v. Whitfield Grocery Co.Court of Appeals of Georgia · 1921