Clark Circuit Court. shall be passed, taxing by a uniform rule, all moneys, credits, investments in bonds, ocks, joint stock companies, or otherwise; and also all real and personal property, according to its true value in money," and other limitations of the constitution, all our laws defining the different subjects of taxation, providing for the listing, valuing and taxing of property and for the collection of taxes, have been passed, and subject to these limitations the legislature is the sole judge of the mode and manner of and the agencies which shall be employed in its exercise. And in the exercise of this power the legislature may tax property in the possession or under the control of an agent in the name of such agent, or in the name of the owner, or partly in the name of each, subject to the constitutional mandate that all the property must be taxed, and according to its true value in money. It only remains, then, to determine whether the depositors are required to return for taxation their "property" in these societies. Section 2730 consists of definitions, and some of them are as follows: "The term 'money' or 'moneys,' shall be held to mean ** every deposit which the person owning, holding in trust, or having the beneficial interest therein, is entitled to withdraw in money on demand; the term 'credits' shall be held to mean the excess of the sum of all legal claims and demands, * including deposits in banks or with per sons in or out of this state, other than such as are held to be money, as hereir.before defined." * * * "Also personal property shall be held to mean and include, first, every tangible thing being the subject of ownership, whether animate or inanimate, other than money, * * * second, the capital stock, undivided profits, and all other means not forming part of the capital stock of every company, whether incorporated or unincorporated, and every share, portion, or interest in such stock, profits or means by whatsoever name the same may be designated " That is to say personal property shall be held to mean and include every interest in the capital stock, undivided profits, and all other means not forming part of the capital stock, by whatsoever game the same may be designated, of every company, whether incorporated or unincorporated. Section 2731 provides that: sonal, in this state * * * All property, whether real or perand all moneys credits, investments in bonds, stocks, or otherwise, of persons residing in this state, shall be subject to taxation, except only such as may be expressly exempt therefrom." Section 2735 prescribes where, and section 2736 as of that day, personal property is to be listed, and section 2787 what the list or statement shall contain, and some of the specifications are as follows: "Seventh-The total value of all articles of personal property, not included in the preceding or acceeding classes. "Thirteenth- Moneys on hand or on deposit, subject to order. jort stock companies, anocities, or otherwise." Section 2739 lays do the rule for valuing personal property "At its asti selling price or at such price as it is believed could be blamed therefor in money investments in bonds, stocks, joint stock comperies, 02 other ise, shell be valneo. at the true value thereof, in money, money. whether in possession or on deposit, shall be entered on the statement at the full amount thereof, Collett v. Savings Society. * * * and every credit for a sum certain, * * * shall be valued at the full amount of the sum so payable." "Section 2746: Personal property of every description, moneys and credits, investments in bonds, stocks, joint stock companies, or otherwise, shall be listed in the name of the person who was the owner thereof on the day preceding the second Monday of April, in each year; but no person shall be required to list for taxation any share or shares of the capital stock of any company, the capital stock of which is taxed in the name of such company." These laws were enacted with a view to a compliance with the constitutional mandate that: "Laws shall be passed, taxing by a uniform rule, all moneys, credits, investments in bond, stock, joint stock companies, or otherwise; and also all real and personal property, according to its true value in money." And, whether or not the interests or "property" of depositors, in savings societies organized under the law of 1867, might be held to be a deposit, which the owner is entitled to withdraw in money on demand, and therefore comprised in the term "money," or a deposit which the owner is not entitled to withdraw in money on demand, and therefore embraced in the term "credit," there can be no doubt that that part of the definition of personal property in section 2730, already given, to-wit: "Personal property shall be held to mean and include every interest in the capital stock, undivided profits, and all other means not forming part of the capital stock, by whatsoever name the same may be designated, of every company, whether incorporated or unincorporated," is sufficiently comprehensive to include the interests of such depositors, and that they must be returned under the fifteenth item of section 2737. If not, then certainly under the seventh item of that section. It will be noticed that the subjects of taxation mentioned in the first clause of section 2, article 12, of the constitution are "moneys, credits, investments in bonds, stocks, joint stock companies, or otherwise." Section 2730 defines "moneys," "credits," "investments in bonds," and "investments in stocks," and that part of the definition of personal property already given is an attempt to define the remainig subjects of taxation mentioned in the first clause of section 2, article 12, to-wit: "Investments in * * * joint stock companies, or otherwise." "The true meaning or construction of these provisions may be discovered in the reasonable and proper assumption that the legislature intended to provide for the imposition of taxes in accord with the declared meaning of the constitution." McIlvaine, J., in Payne v. Watterson, 37 Ohio St., 121, 125. These words of the constitution which embrace the interests of these depositors, are found in section 2731, requiring such interests to be taxed unless expressly exempt; in section 2737, requiring such interests to be listed; in section 2739, requiring them to be valued at the true value thereof, in money; and in section 2746, requiring them to be listed in the name of the person who was the owner on the day preceding the second Monday of April. The interests of such depositors are nowhere exempt from taxation, and they would not be exempt even if they had been specified along with shares of capital stock in section 2746, because the capital stock of savings. 50creties organized under the law of 1867, is not taxed in the name of Cho someties. Clark Circuit Court. In The People v. National Gold Bank, 51 Cal., 508, 510, the court says: "The provisions of the thirteenth section, that the owner or holder of stock in any company, etc., the entire capital of which is as sessed or invested in property which is assessed, shall not be assessed for his stock, is, in effect, a provision that when the capital is not so assessed, the stock shall be assessed to the owner thereof." In this state it is not necessary to resort to construction. The decisions of other states may be of little assistance, because of different constitutional and statutory provisions, but attention is called to the following: In Augusta Savings Bank v. Augusta, 56 Me., 1īt, 178, Danforth, J., says: "The property taxed is the capital of the bank, and, as such, is made up exclusively of the deposits. The deposits are but the parts, the capital the whole, composed of these parts, and, for the purpose of taxation are one and the same thing. The depositors are taxable for their deposits in the several towns in which they reside, and the capital made up of these deposits cannot be again taxed to the corporation." In Worcester County Institution for Savings v. The City of Worcester, 10 Cush., 128, 129, the question was whether the savings institution was taxable on bank stock in which it had invested deposits, the depositors being taxed on their deposits. It was held the institution was not taxable on the stock. Metcalf, J., says: "This case is not distinguishable from that of banks and manufacturing corporations, in which the stockholders, and not the corporations are taxable for the stock, with the single exception of the machinery employed in the manufactures." The State v. Sterling, Pres't of Savings Bank, 20 Md., 502, 518, where the property was taxed to the bank, and not to the depositors, the questions were whether the bank could deduct for that portion of the property invested in non-taxable bonds, and also could deduct the $50.00 exemption allowed by law to each depositor, and the $15,000 exemption allowed each charitable organization, Cockran, J., says: "Standing thus by legislative intendment as reciprocal representatives of each other, a tax on either of necessity becomes a tax on the other, and upon the same principle the exemption of either, from that liability, would operate as an exemption of the other," and the deductions were allowed. In Savings Bank v. Nashua, 46 N. H., 389, it was held that the bank was not taxable on bank stock in which it had invested, the depositors being taxed on their deposits. See, also, People ex rel. v. Badlam, 57 Cal, 594; Beery v. Windham, 57 N. H., 288, 289; Savings Inst. v. Gardner, 4 R. I., 48; Rutland Savings Bank v. Rutland, 52 Vt., 461. But it may be asked: First, why does not a return by the depositors of their interests at their true value in money accomplish a complete taxation of the property? Second, why cannot the property be taxed wholly in the name of the society. These questions are pertinent only in so far as they may aid in arriving at the legislative intention. Because, if it be determined that the legislature has provided for taxing the property partly to each, that is a matter entirely within its discretion, if the whole property is taxed. In answer to the first it may be said, that a complete taxation of the property cannot be so effected, because, by reason of the peculiar char acter f such a society, the value of a depositor's interest, long as the society continues doing business, can never rise above par, and therefore, Colett v. Savings Society. 10s the purpose of taxation, does not represent the furniture, real estate, surplus, and undivided profits. This is so because the depositor has no occasion to sell his interest, the law providing that he may withdraw his deposit, and no one would give a depositor more than par, because on depositing an equal amount the iw gives such person an interest just as valuable. The real estate and furniture are for the purpose of transacting the business of the society, and the latter depositors would receive froin them and from the surplus just as much benefit as the former. The surplus, the law provides, is to be accumulated and held to insure the depositors against loss from a depreciation of investments, and it adds no more to the taxabie value of a depositor's "property" in the society than does other insurance to the taxable value of the property it covers. In answer to the second question, consul suggest that it is not practicable, and that it would require the society to withhold from one set of depositors a part of their deposits, or the profits thereon, with which to pay taxes on the deposits of another set. So far as it is a question of power, no reason is apparent why the legislature may not tax the property wholly in the name of the societies; but in the exercise of the power it might be found difficult, if not impossible, to devise a plan which, while practicable in effecting taxation of the whole property, might not at the same time operate to deprive some persons, and those the most deserving, of the one hundred dollars exemption to which, by law, under the constitution, all persons are justly entitled. It is not assumed that all of the foregoing considerations were present in the mind of the legislature. But whether the result of chance, or design, it would be difficult to devise a better mode for the taxation of this property, or one more just. In Treasurer v. Bank, 47 Ohio St., 503, the claim was not made, and could not have been made successfully, that the deposits were not the property of the bank. The claim was that section 2759 simply prescribed the mode for ascertaining the value of the bank's property employed in banking, and to sustain that claim it would have been necessary, not only to overrule The Exchange Bank of Columbus v. Hine, 3 Ohio St., 1, but to go beyond the position occupied by Judge Ranney in that case, for he did not claim that debts should be deducted from cash and investments in bonds and stock. But, necessarily, for every dollar of property held by the bank as deposits, a dollar of debts exists from the bank to the depositor; so that when the court in Treasurer v. Bank, snpra, had determined that the value of the bank's property could not be determined by a mode which in effect exempted part of the property from taxation, it was necessary, inasmuch as debts can be deducted in ascertaining the value of credits, to go still farther and determine whether the effect of section 2759 was to exempt part of the property of the bank from taxation by providing for a deduction of debts from cash and bonds, as well as from the sum cf all legal claims and demands. The debts exceeded the sum of all the bank's legal claims and demands, so that an application of the provisions of the section would have exempted the bank's cash and investments in bonds and stock from taxation to the extent of the excess of the debts over the sum of the legal claims and demands; and the court therefore held the section unconstitutional in so far as it authorizes the deduction of debts from anything but what goes to make up credits. Clark Circuit Court. The legislature, when it passed the act of 1867, providing for ne taxation of bank shares and bankers, and which directed the deduction of deposits, assumed that the deposits belonged to the depositors, inasmuch as they were taxed upon them, and that deducting them would leave the bank to pay upon its capital. Other banks were not taxed upon deposits, nor did the shareholders in such banks pay taxes upon deposits in paying taxes upon the value of their shares. The value of such shares is determined by the solvency of the bank, the amount of its surplus and its earnings. The legislature did not regard the deposits as debts. A deduction from property liable to taxation is nowhere authorized by reason of debts. "Credits" is a subject of taxation, and by section 2730, the term is defined to mean, in brief, the excess of the sum of all legal claims and demands, due to the person liable to pay taxes thereon, when added together, over and above the sum of legal bona fide debts owing by such person. Debts are considered only in determining credits. Even such deduction, ever since the decision of Exchange Bank of Columbus v. Hine, 3 Ohio St. 1, was known to be of doubtful constitutional validity, and never since that decision has it been claimed that debts can be deducted from anything but the sum of all legal claims and demands. The legislature was mistaken as to the relations existing between an unincorporated bank and its general depositors. The deposits belonged to the bank, and could not, therefore, be deducted from the sum of its holdings in determining the amount upon which the bank was to be taxed, nor could they be deducted as debts from cash and stocks and bonds. As to the ownership of the deposits, the capital, of a savings society organized under the act of 1867, the legislature was not mistaken. And the fact, if it be a fact, that a depositor may, upon demand, the expiration of notice and refusal of the society to pay him the amount of his deposit, the society being solvent, sue the society for the amount of his deposit as for a debt, cannot in any way affect the ownership of the property of the society by its depositors. The right to withdraw, as has beer already pointed out, being necessary in order to obtain depositors, is expressly given by the act of the legislature, and provided for by the rules, regulations and by-laws of the society, to which every depositor is required by law to assent. Section 27596 requires a return of all the property, and the society to pay taxes upon all of it that is taxable excepting so much of it as is represented by the deposits, and the depositors being required to return and pay taxes upon the value of their interests, which, for the purpose of taxation, are the reciprocais of the deposits, a complete taxation of the whole property is effected, and no provision of the constitution is violated. The defendant did not make a return for the year 1892, in accordance with the provisions of section 2759%, but the court of common pleas found, as a conclusion of fact, and the conclusion is sustained by the evidence, that the amount returned for that year by the defendant, and upon which it paid taxes, was in excess of the amount upon which it was required to pay, as ascertained by that section The returns for the preceding years are not faise. There are no errors prejudicial to the plaintiff error apparent in the record, and the judgment of the court of common pleas is affirmed. Chase Stewar!, W. A. Scotid N. E. Warwick, for Plainuff. |