Amounts received from Illinois Central railroad. A table is given below of the amounts paid into the state treasury by the Illinois Central Railroad for a period beginning with the year 1855. Amounts Paid to the State. The Illinois Central has paid into the state treasury the following (These statistics are for the fiscal years ending October 31). Comparison of payments of Jllinois Central to the state with taxation of other railroads in Illinois. In any comparison of payments into the state treasury by railroads in this state, it should be borne in mind that the Illinois Central Railroad not only received exemption from state and local taxation in return for the 7% gross receipts payment, but also a large amount of land. In Brownson's History of the Illinois Central Railroad he says that "by 1874 approximately two million two hundred thousand acres had been sold" which made an average receipt per acre of a little over twelve dollars including expenses, or eleven dollars net receipts. This grant of two million five hundred thousand acres of land has been a source of a great profit to the company, and at the same time has been managed well and sold to the best advantage of the community as a whole as well as of the company." On page 139 of Brownson's study will be found a table giving the receipts of the land office from 1851 to 1907 as $29,480,292.82. So far as actual annual taxation is concerned it is difficult to make a precise comparison with other railroads. A table is here inserted which seeks to give, for several years, a comparison of Illinois Central Railroad payments on its charter lines with the payments by other railroads. In connection with this table it must, however, be borne in mind that terminal roads at Chicago and East St. Louis pay a higher tax per mile than do other roads and more per mile in proportion to gross earnings than do the Illinois Central charter lines. A comparison of tax per mile of main line track is really of little value. The Illinois Central charter lines are through lines of large earning capacity, and the only mileage comparison of any value would be that of the Illinois Central charter lines with the principal lines of other roads. The main track of other roads includes branch lines with small earnings; and the corresponding subsidiary lines of the Illinois Central are not included in the charter lines. Attention may also be called to the fees imposed by the corporation and public utilities laws; and the new franchise tax on corporations established in 1919. Such fees have in the past been paid by the Illinois Central as well as other railroads; and the Attorney General has held that the new franchise tax is also applicable to the Illinois Central railroad. a Compiled from "Tabular statement of the amount of taxes charged for collection against the Equalized Assessed valuation of Railroad Property," issued by the Auditor of Public Accounts. The amounts for the Illinois Central Railroad do not agree exactly with the figures in the biennial reports of the Auditor of Public Accounts, as shown on p. 1185. Constitutionality of Illinois Central gross receipts tax. Professor Henry Schofield in an article in the Illinois Law Review several years ago raised an issue as to the constitutionality of the Illinois Central gross receipts payments, on the ground that this payment might be held to be a burden upon interstate commerce. His view was that the tax provisions of the charter are broad enough to comprehend gross receipts from interstate as well as from domestic commerce, and the charter requirement is construed to apply to receipts from both sources. In reply to this article Dean James P. Hall took the view that the gross receipts provision was constitutional. No issue of federal constitutionality of the gross receipts provision has been made and so far as can now be discovered none is likely to be made.3 3 Henry Schofield, The State Tax on Illinois Central Gross Receipts, and the Commerce Power of Congress, Illinois Law Review, I, 440. J. P. Hall, The State Tax on Illinois Central Gross Receipts-Another View, Illinois Law Review, II, 21. |