OCR Text |
Show the payment of a tax upon shares of stock by the bank, so as to avoid the delay and embarrassment connected with the collection of an assessment from nonresident shareholders, and this mode of collection by State authorities has been held valid; that it was held in the "National Bank v. Commouwealth" (9 Wallace, 353) that s. State tax upon shares is valid though the tax is collected from the bank, and the State may require the hank to pay a tax rightfully laid upon the shares; that national banking associations can not he subject to a license or a privilege tax (Mayor v. First Nat.ional Bank of Macon, 59 Ga., 648; City of Carthage, 71 Mo., 508; National Bznk of Chattanooga v. Mayor, 8 Heiskell, 814); but it has been held that "where the State hanks are taxed upon the capital no tax can be imposed upon the shares of national banking associations " (3 Wallace, 573, and 4 Wallace, 459). While, therefore, it would seem that the Chickasaw Nation would be precluded, under the statutes of the United States, from imposing a permit tax on national hanks within that nnation, the said nation may impose a tax upon the stock of the bank held by individuals and require the bank to pay the same, unless there be banks estab-lished under the authority of the laws of the nation which are taxed upon their capital stock. The office therefore took the position that, because of the peculiar language of the law of the Creek Nation taxing national banks, such banks would he exempt from taxation, "inasmuch as it appears that the rule is-a tax on the capital stock of a bank in solido is void; and such is apparently the tax authorized to be assessed by the Creek laws." Department reply, August 15,1899, to the inspector, held as follows: Upon s fair eonatruction of said provision of the Creek law that the tax required to be paid to said nation is intended to be a tax on the shares of said bank and not on its capital, the expression, "On each banking establishment onehalf of 1 per cent of capital stock invested,'' is evidently the measure of the tax to be collected; and the sueceeding expression, "Assesament to be made on the bank on account of the aharea thereof," shows that the intention is to tax the shares, and not the capital, of the bank. It is not suggested that there are any banks authorized by the laws of the Creek Nation which are taxed upon their capital stock, nor does it appear that the taxation discriminates in any way againsf the national banks over banking insti-tutions which may be operated under other authority. The provision of the law of the Chickasaw Nation upon which said letter of the Comptroller of the Currency is based is not set out, but a reference to section 2 of the act of said nation of October 7, 1876 (p. 92, edition 1890), shows that a tax was required of 1 per cent "of the amount of capital invested annually." If this be the provision under which the tax was levied for the Chickasaw Nation it ia quite manifest that it was a tax on the capital, and not on the ahafes of the hank stock, as in the Creek Nation. You are advised, therefore, that the national banks doing business in the Creek Nation "are liable to the tax as prescribed by the Creek laws." November 3, 1899, the inspector requested to be further advised relative to collecting tax from national hanks doing business within the limits of thecreek Nation, and forwarded a communication, dated the day previous, from P. L. Soper, United States district attorney for the northern district of the Indian Territory, in which Mr. Soper reached the conclusion that the tax was illegal. The subject was sub-mitted to the Assistant Attorney-General for the Interior Department for an opinion relative to the validity of the tax, and January 25,1900, |