Other Types of Taxes
Income Taxes.—Any attempt by a State to measure a tax on one person's income by reference to the income of another is contrary to due process as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus a husband cannot be taxed on the combined total of his and his wife's incomes as shown by separate returns, where her income is her separate property and where, by reason of the tax being graduated, its amount exceeded the sum of the taxes which would have been due had their separate incomes been separately assessed.[473] Moreover, a tax on income, unlike a gift tax, is not necessarily unconstitutional, because retroactive. Taxpayers cannot complain of arbitrary action or assert surprise in the retroactive apportionment of tax burdens to income when that is done by the legislature at the first opportunity after knowledge of the nature and amount of the income is available.[474]
Franchise Taxes.—A city ordinance imposing annual license taxes on light and power companies is not violative of the due process clause merely because the city has entered the power business in competition with such companies.[475] Nor does a municipal charter authorizing the imposition upon a local telegraph company of a tax upon the lines of the company within its limits at the rate at which other property is taxed, but upon an arbitrary valuation per mile, deprive the company of its property without due process of law, inasmuch as the tax is a mere franchise or privilege tax.[476]
Severance Taxes.—A State excise on the production of oil which extends to the royalty interest of the lessor in the oil produced under an oil lease as well as to the interest of the lessee engaged in the active work of production, the tax being apportioned between these parties according to their respective interest in the common venture, is not arbitrary as regards the lessor, but consistent with due process.[477]
Real Property Taxes (Assessment).—The maintenance of a high assessment in the face of declining value is merely another way of achieving an increase in the rate of property tax. Hence, an over-assessment constitutes no deprivation of property without due process of law.[478] Likewise, land subject to mortgage may be taxed for its full value without deduction of the mortgage debt from the valuation.[479]
Real Property Taxes: Special Assessments.—A State may defray the entire expense of creating, developing, and improving a political subdivision either from funds raised by general taxation, or by apportioning the burden among the municipalities in which the improvements are made, or by creating, or authorizing the creation of, tax districts to meet sanctioned outlays.[480] Where a State statute authorizes municipal authorities to define the district to be benefited by a street improvement and to assess the cost of the improvement upon the property within the district in proportion to benefits, their action in establishing the district and in fixing the assessments on included property, after due hearing of the owners as required by the statute cannot, when not arbitrary or fraudulent, be reviewed under the Fourteenth Amendment upon the ground that other property benefited by the improvement was not included.[481]
It is also proper to impose a special assessment for the preliminary expenses of an abandoned road improvement, even though the assessment exceeds the amount of the benefit which the assessors estimated the property would receive from the completed work.[482] Likewise a levy upon all lands within a drainage district of a tax of twenty-five cents per acre to defray preliminary expenses does not unconstitutionally take the property of landowners within that district who may not be benefited by the completed drainage plans.[483] On the other hand, when the benefit to be derived by a railroad from the construction of a highway will be largely offset by the loss of local freight and passenger traffic, an assessment upon such railroad is violative of due process,[484] whereas any gains from increased traffic reasonably expected to result from a road improvement will suffice to sustain an assessment thereon.[485] Also the fact that the only use made of a lot abutting on a street improvement is for a railway right of way does not make invalid, for lack of benefits, an assessment thereon for grading, curbing, and paving.[486] However, when a high and dry island was included within the boundaries of a drainage district from which it could not be benefited directly or indirectly, a tax on such island was held to be a deprivation of property without due process of law.[487] Finally, a State may levy an assessment for special benefits resulting from an improvement already made[488] and may validate an assessment previously held void for want of authority.[489]
Land
Prior even to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, it was settled principle that a State could not tax land situated beyond its limits; and subsequently elaborating upon that principle the Court has said that "* * *, we know of no case where a legislature has assumed to impose a tax upon land within the jurisdiction of another State, much less where such action has been defended by a court."[490] Insofar as a tax payment may be viewed as an exaction for the maintenance of government in consideration of protection afforded, the logic sustaining this rule is self-evident.