305
Reviews of Books be made out, assessment and collection, and remedies. The secondary purpose seems to have been to throw some light on the question of constitutionality. In carrying out the former purpose, free use was made of de cisions
under
former
federal
statutes,
as
well as relevant decisions under the English income tax laws. In seeking to realize the latter, while he has expressed serious doubts of the constitutionality of the tax, the author has approached the subject in a spirit of impartiality and caution. Notwithstanding the care with which Mr. Machen gropes his way to the conclusion that the tax is in some respects unconstitu tional if not so in iota, we believe that he
is too ready to assume that the tax is levied on incomes. At all events, the principle he so confidently states, that the tax cannot possibly be laid on the right to do business, has been so generally recognized to be de batable that fuller consideration of the view likely to be asserted by the government, and actually asserted, as the outcome proved, in the argument before the Supreme Court, was to be desired. Taking throughout the position that the tax is laid on income, Mr. Machen, if this view is to prevail, seems also to have gone too far when he reasons that if corporate income derived from real estate and from invested personal property is to be considered as not taxable without apportion ment, on the authority of the Income Tax
cases, yet income received from business in general, excluding all income derived from investments, may be taxable (p. 56).
It is
difficult to see why all the income of a cor poration is not derived from the invested personal property of the stockholders. It may therefore be questioned whether, on the authority of the Income Tax cases, any part of the income derived from the business of the corporation may be taxed. If it may, what may be good law may be bad economics. We may perhaps also be excused for dis agreeing with the suggestion that on account of the constitutional limitations on the federal taxing power, income derived from state and municipal securities may properly be deducted in computing the net income which measures the amount of the tax. Aside from these points we have found nothing to draw forth adverse criticism, and
because of the copiousness of useful material included the book is likely to prove useful to corporations and their legal advisers
if the Supreme Court should see fit sustain the constitutionality of the act.
to
DILL ON NEW JERSEY CORPORATION LAW The Statute and Case Law of the State of New Jerse Relating to Business Companies, under an Act Concerning Corporations (Revision of 1896) and the Various Acts Amendatory thereof and Sup lernental thereto. with Annotations and Forms. By ames B. Dill. Pp. l, 216+index 36.
Statute and Case Law of the State of New Jersey" is the title of the 1910 edition of Dill on New Jersey Corporations. This book has been gradually expanded from a guide to incorporation "Under an Act Concerning Corporations (Revision of
1896),"
to
a
oompendious,
if
concise,
treatise upon the law of corporations. The whole contains two hundred and fifty pages, within which are included the best (certified by the Secretary of State of New Jersey) of
all the state enactments applicable to busines S corporations, annotations by citation from the fifteen hundred cases gathered into the table of cases, a complete set of forms and pre cedents, with a special index thereof, a schedule of fees and taxes, a table of contents, and an adequate general index. As the author, James B. Dill, had much to do with
the original formulation of the present New Jersey policy toward corporations and is now a Judge of the Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey, to the obvious merits of the work must be added that of authenticity. For the purposes of an attorney concerned with a matter of the New Jersey law of busi ness corporations, this handbook may serve as well as a library, and, in some cases, better.
The excellence of New Jersey statutes and adjudications makes for its usefulness with reference to the law of other states. If American corporation law is in essential uniform, New Jersey has worked out its problems in practice quite as far as any state, and nowhere, perhaps, have questions of corporate management been settled as a result of such a degree of attention from the leaders of the American bar. While the New Jersey citations predominate, the reports of other states are quoted and federal de cisions as late as 209 United States Reports. Dill on New Jersey Corporations, long a standard authority for a, special branch of the subject of corporations, seems to have
attained a more general usefulness.
