Double taxation Author:Richard Henry Dana Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DOUBLE TAXATION UNJUST AND INEXPEDIENT. Tlie shares of foreign corporations, tvhen the corporations are legally taxed where situated, should be relieved fr... more »om taxation here. STATEMENT OF THE CASE. The tax in this State on stock in foreign corporations is unjust in principle, unconstitutional, and not for the best interests of the State. Massachusetts corporations are taxed on their real estate, machinery, and franchise, but there is no further tax to the owner of the shares. Foreign corporations are also taxed where situated 011 their real estate, machinery and franchise, and in addition to that, we tax the owners of the shares, who happen to reside in this State, on the full value of their interest in the Same property, under the guise of taxing their certificates of stock. This is a clear case of double taxation. We might as well first tax the real estate, and then tax the deeds over again to the full value of the property of -which the deeds are the certificates of title. Corporations, indeed, are nothing more than partnerships with limited liability and under certain statutory regulations. Would it be right to tax partnership property, and then tax each partner over again on his partnership agreement, assessed at the full value of the same partnership property ? Indeed, the case would be very clear, were the whole of the United States one great Massachusetts. Then the taxing power would not thinkof taxing the Eastern owner of shares of a Western corporation for the value of those shares in addition to taxing all the real and personal property and the franchise of the corporation ; but our great country being divided up into various States, each with the power to establish corporations, we undertake in Massachusetts to tax the shares of an Illinois corporation, th...« less