Curry v. McCanless’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

71 federal appellate · 3 district · 362 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 614 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ ‘Very different considerations, both theoretical and practical, apply to the taxation of intangibles, that is, rights which are not related to physical things. Such rights are but relationships between persons, natural or corporate, which the law recognizes by attaching to them certain sanctions enforceable in courts. The power of government over them and the protection which it gives them cannot be exerted through control of a physical thing. They can be made effective only through control over and protection afforded to those persons whose relationships are the origin of the rights. [Citing cases.] Obviously, as sources of actual or potential wealth —which is an appropriate measure of any tax imposed on ownership or its exercise — they cannot be disassociated from the persons from whose relationships they are derived. These are not in any sense fictions. They are indisputable realities. “ ‘The power to tax “is an incident of sovereignty, and is co-extensive with that to which it is an incident. All subjects over which the sovereign power of a state extends, are objects of taxation; but those over which it does not extend, are, upon the soundest principles, exempt from taxation.” McCulloch v. [State of] Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 429 , 4 L.Ed. 579 . But this does not mean that the sovereign pow er of the state does not extend over intangibles of a domiciled resident because they have no physical location within its territory, or that its power to tax is lost because we may ch”

   8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Mobil Oil Corp. v. Commissioner of Taxes of Vt. · Maristany v. Secretary of the Treasury

2. “income may be taxed [simultaneously] both by the state where it is earned and by the state of the recipient's domicile.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Comptroller of Treasury of Md. v. Wynne · Residuary Trust A v. Director, Division of Taxation

3. “[p]rotection, benefit, and power over [a taxpayer's income] are not confined to either”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Comptroller of Treasury of Md. v. Wynne · AAMCO Transmissions, Inc. v. Taxation & Revenue Department