Railway Company v. Loftin/Opinion of the Court

by Morrison Waite

United States Supreme Court

98 U.S. 559

Railway Company  v.  Loftin

The principal question in this case is whether the eleventh section of the charter of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad Company, which exempts for ever from taxation the capital stock and dividends of the company, carries with it an exemption of the lands in question so long as they remain unsold. We had occasion at the present term, in Railroad Companies v. Gaines (97 U.S. 697), to construe an exemption clause in a railroad charter almost in the exact language of that now under consideration; and while conceding that ordinarily an exemption of the capital stock is equivalent to an exemption of the property into which the capital has been converted, unless a contrary intention is in some way manifested, we held that as the railroad, with its fixtures and appurtenances, was only exempted from taxation for twenty years, and the capital stock was exempted for ever, it was clear that the road and fixtures could not represent the capital for the purposes of taxation. The twenty-fifth section of the Mississippi Valley charter, even if it was incorporated with that of the Cairo and Fulton company, of which there may be doubt, does not materially change the effect of the eleventh section. It vests the capital stock and property of the company in the stockholders in proportion to their respective shares, but that is far from making the stock and the property identical for the purposes of taxation. Indeed, taking the whole section together, it is apparent that there was in the case of that company the same intention to separate the taxation of the stock from that of the property as is found in the Cairo and Fulton charter.

But when the land grant was made, the intention not to include the lands granted in the exemption of the stock is still more manifest; for it is there expressly provided that the 'road, fixtures, lands, tenements, and houses shall be considered separate and distinct from the capital stock,' and while the original exemption of stock was continued, the lands, &c., were to be taxed after twenty years from the date of the completion of the road. It is quite true that this provision of the granting act was afterwards repealed, and a different mode of taxation adopted; but there is nowhere in the repealing act any intention shown of converting the lands into capital stock, and without some express declaration to that effect, no such conversion will be presumed. The lands were used in lieu of capital. They were given in aid of the construction of the road, and to that extent relieved the company from the necessity of raising money through stock subscriptions; but it would be unreasonable to hold that, because they rendered stock to some extent unnecessary, they were on that account stock itself. Exemptions from taxation are never presumed. On the contrary, the presumptions are always the other way; and as in this case the capital stock is alone exempt, the property of the company is not to be included in the exemption, unless it manifestly represents the stock, within the meaning of that term as used by the legislature in the particular act to be construed. As we said in Railroad Companies v. Gaines (supra), whenever property is exempted by reason of the exemption of capital stock, it is because, taking the whole charter together, such appears to have been the intention of the legislature.

On the whole, we are clearly of the opinion that the lands in question are not included in the exemptions of the original charter. None of the other statutes set out in the bill amount to a limitation of the power of future legislatures in respect to the taxation of the property. They are in no sense contracts, and all not, therefore, irrepealable. Tucker v. Ferguson, 22 Wall. 527.

Judgment affirmed.

Notes