Boylan v. United States/Opinion of the Court

by Salmon P. Chase

United States Supreme Court

77 U.S. 58

Boylan  v.  United States

The general question in this case is, by what rule is the increased value to be ascertained?

It was insisted in argument that the true mode of ascertaining the amount of increase is to deduct from the price of the manufactured goods sold and delivered, the market value of the materials at the time of the delivery.

And we think it reasonable that in a case where the sale and delivery is to the government which imposes and collects the tax, that the market value of the goods shall be taken as determined by the price which the government agrees to pay and the contractor agrees to receive. But it is not so clear that the value of the materials is to be determined by their market value at the time of the delivery of the manufactured goods. On the contrary, it seems to us that when the legislature made the degree of increased value after the payment of the tax on materials, the criterion by which to determine whether the manufactured goods should be liable to, or exempt from taxation, its intention was to require a comparison between the market value of the materials at the time the tax on them was paid, with the market value of the manufactured goods at the time of the assessment of the tax upon them. The time of this assessment in the case before us was in October, 1864, and the market value, on that day, must, as we have just said, be taken as determined by the contract price.

When the duties on the materials were paid is not shown, but it is agreed that they were paid, and that the market value of the clothing at the time of delivery to the United States was greater than the market value of the materials when made or sold by the manufacturers, or purchased by the plaintiff in error, by more than five per cent. ad valorem. We infer that the duties on the materials were paid when or before they became the property of the plaintiff in error.

And these circumstances, as it seems to us, take the manufactured goods out of the category of exemption established by the law.

The language of the act seems, indeed, hardly to admit of any other interpretation. In terms stripped of superfluous words, it provides that goods manufactured from materials upon which duties have been paid, when the increased value shall not exceed the amount of five per cent. ad valorem, shall be exempt. The obvious construction of this language is, that increased value means the value augmented since the original payment of the duties; and that the five per cent. is to be computed on the value of the materials when those duties were paid.

This construction requires the affirmance of the judgment of the Circuit Court, and it is accordingly

AFFIRMED.

Notes