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Show CORPORATION TAX PENALTY. We . notice that Attorney-General Brecden has given an opinicm on tho corporation tax law that is advorue to the contention of Secretary of State Tingoy in Borne, rt'spects. The Secretary Secre-tary contends that tho penalty for the failure to pay license is imperative, and accrues at once on the dnto named for the final expiration of tho timo within which the corporation tax or licenso must bo paid, and can be peremptorily per-emptorily enforced by him. This li-conso li-conso is, under the law '(sec chapter .107, Session Laws 1907. p.. 127), made payable ou or before tho 1 5th day of November of each year. Section four, which provides the penally for tho fail-tiro fail-tiro to pa' such license, reads ns follows: fol-lows: Any corpornfjon .falling or refusing to pay said annual license. aH and sit tho thntf specified herein, and which willfully or negligently, falls to pay the said lU-ense within n period of sixty days thereafter, shnll be aubject to a line of one hundred dollars, and such fine and license shall become a. lien upon any. proporty. ronl or personal, ownpil by said corporation, and tho llceniio and potmliio.i provided for In this net, shnll he recovered by actions at law, instituted In. the namo of the State by tho Attornoy Ooncral or by the Cnuntv Attorney In which the prlnelpnl offlr-c of the corporation Is located. Tho period of sixty days after tho loth day of November expired on January Jan-uary 35th. instant. Secretary of Slate Tlugoj' hold that the penalty of one hundred dollars should at once accrue. Tho Attornoy-Gcnoral holds to the contrary, con-trary, lhat this penalty and tho delayed de-layed license payment aro only recoverable recov-erable by actions of law instituted in the name of tho Stalo by the Attorney-General in Iho cases where tho corporation cor-poration files directly with the Secretary Secre-tary of State. ; It scorns lo us that the reading of ) tho law, as quoted above, is very plain. Tho Altornoy-Ocnernl docs not make it so in his let! or to Secretary of State Tingc.y. Ho would havo done belter if he had quoted the law in tho letter in place of construing it. But tho Attorney-General is quite correct in stating stat-ing that tho penalty is only lo be imposed im-posed as a judgment of Ihc court af- , tcr suit has begun and tho judgment I obtained. Tho words "willfullv or j negligently" used in the section above quoted seem to be entirely suportlnniiR. Tho law was not in the least strengthened strength-ened by the insertion of those words, nor would it bo woukened bv their elision. Tho point of that proposition is that corporations failing to pav their annual license incur a pcnaltj- from and after the loth day of January, wheu this ponalty is incorporated in a judg- j mcnt against them by courts of competent com-petent jurisdiction. But there seems to be in the law no provision which requires re-quires tho corporations lo pay any penally of this kind in tho absence j of judgment, nor authority for the Secretary of State to oxact it prior to tho suit. |
