PIERCE
v.
UNITED STATES; UNITED STATES V. PIERCE
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Pierce owned a foreign-built yacht that was assessed a federal tax based on the privilege of potential use, even though the vessel remained out of commission and unused during the relevant tax year. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment upholding the tax, holding that the tax statute did not permit taxation based on potential use but rather required actual use of the yacht.
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Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court.
These two cases involve the liability of the plaintiff in error in No. 64 for a tax on the foreign-built yacht Yacona, which became due on the first of September, 1909. The complaint in every substantial particular was identical with that filed in the Billings Case this day decided, and this is true also of the defenses set up in the answer except that the answer in this case contained this distinct averment which was not in the Billings Case: “That the said yacht Yacona was not in use by the defendant or by any other person at any . time during the year next preceding the first day of September, 1909, but was out of commission and laid up unused at Brooklyn in the State of New York, throughout the whole of such year.” The case was submitted on bill and answer and the. liability for the tax which was upheld by the court below was rested upon the construction as to potential use that is a tax on the privilege of using which we decided in the Billings Case to be unsound. In this case, as in that, the certificate is concerned with a writ of error prosecuted by the United States to the Circuit Court of Appeals because of the rejection of a prayer for interest. Treating both the cases in this instance as one, as we did in the previous cases, and applying to' this the construction which we have given the statute in those cases, it follows that the judgment below was wrong and must be reversed, 'with direction to dismiss the complaint.
And it is-so ordered.
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Bromley v. McCaughn, 280 U.S. 124 (U.S. 1929)…s rights of property, but each is clearly distinguishable from a tax which falls upon the owner merely because he is owner, regardless of the use or disposition made of his property. See Billings v. United States, supra; cf. Pierce v. United States, 232 U. S. 290. The persistence of this distinction and the justification for it rest upon the historic fact that taxes of this type were not understood to be direct taxes when the Constitution was adopted and, as well, upon the reluctance of this Court to enlarge…
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United States v. German Munoz-Flores, 863 F.2d 654 (9th Cir. 1988)…tes, 232 U.S. 310, 34 S.Ct. 429, 58 L.Ed. 617 (1914); United States ex rel. Michels v. James, 26 F.Cas. 577 (S.D.N.Y.1875) (No. 15,464); United States v. Billings, 190 F. 359 (S.D.N.Y.1911), rev’d on other grounds sub. nom., Pierce v. United States, 232 U.S. 290, 34 S.Ct. 427, 58 L.Ed. 609 (1914); Bertelsen v. White, 65 F. 2d 719 (1st Cir.1933); Mulroy v. Block, 569 F.Supp. 256 (N.D.N.Y.1983), aff'd, 736 F. 2d 56 (2d Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1159, 105 S.Ct. 907, 83 L.Ed.2d 922 (1985); Moon v. Freem…
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Fides v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 137 F.2d 731 (4th Cir. 1943)…1, 36 L.Ed. 226; Lau Ow Bew v. United States, 144 U.S. 47, 59, 12 S.Ct. 517, 36 L.Ed. 340; American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co., 213 U.S. 347, 359, 29 S.Ct. 511, 53 L.Ed. 826, 16 Ann.Cas. 1047; United States v. Goelet, 232 U.S. 293, 34 S.Ct. 431, 58 L.Ed. 610; United States v. American Trucking Association, 310 U.S. 534, 543, 60 S.Ct. 1059, 84 L.Ed. 1345. In each of those cases, however, was present a rather clear-cut reason for limiting the apparent generality of the statutory term involved. We cannot…
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