State v. Wilson

Miller, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appeal in this case is from a pro forma order dismissing a petition for a mandamus to compel the President of the “ Baltimore Cemetery Company,” to pay to the Treasurer, State taxes assessed upon the capital stock of that Company for the years 1872 to 1875 inclusive. The shares of stock were assessed hy the Comptroller at their par value of $100 each. The Company insists that its capital stock is exempt from taxation hy reason of the exemption of its property contained in its charter.

The answer relies upon this defence, and also insists that the assessments were grossly in excess of the value of the shares. By the Acts of 1867, ch. 341, sec. 2, and 1874, ch. 483, sec. 3, “all grave-yards, cemeteries, and burying grounds ” were exempted from taxation, hut the answer makes no reference to these laws, and- it is clear they confer no broader exemption than that contained in the Company’s charter. Nor has the Act of 1876, ch. 260, anything to do with this case. Under that Act the property of the Company was assessed for subsequent taxation, and in the case of The Appeal Tax Court of Baltimore City vs. The Baltimore Cemetery Company, 50 Md., 432 , the question was whether certain permanent improvements upon the Company’s land were within the exemption contained in its charter, and it was held that the exemption necessarily included not only the land, hut also the permanent improvements thereon, which formed part of the realty, and were used for the purpose of a public cemetery, and which were essential to the use and enjoyment of the land for the purpose contemplated hy the charter.

In the present case the capital stock of the Company has been assessed ⁶⁴⁰ and taxed for the four years prior to the passage of the Act of 1876, and an entirely different question arises. It has been too well settled in Maryland, by the repeated decisions of this Court, to admit of further discussion, that, for the purpose of taxation, the capital stock of a corporation is the representative of its property, that both cannot he taxed, and that the exemption of the one carries with it the exemption of the other. We must inquire then how far the stock of this corporation is represented by non-taxahle or taxable property. Its charter is the Act of 1849, ch. 71, and as this law was passed prior to the adoption of the Constitution of 1851, its provisions are, of course, not subject to alteration or repeal by the Legislature.

By this Act the corporation which it creates was clothed with power to purchase, and hold land, not exceeding one hundred acres, for the purpose of a public cemetery, also to receive gifts and bequests for the purpose of improving and ornamenting the same, and to hold such personal property as may he requisite to carry out the object of the Act. It further'provides that the capital stock of the Company shall he represented by one thousand shares, of one hundred dollars each, divided among the proprietors according to their respective interests, and transferable in such manner as the By-Laws may direct. It is then, by sec. 7, enacted, “that burial lots in said Cemetery shall not he subject to the debts of