Compulsory tax payment under self-executing penalty

Neither a statute imposing a tax, nor the execution thereunder, nor a mere demand for payment, is treated as duress. ... But he has the same right to sue if he pays under compulsion of a statute whose self-executing provisions amount to duress. An act which declares that where the franchise tax is not paid by a given date, a penalty of 25 per cent shall be incurred, the license of the company shall be canceled, and the right to sue shall be lost, operates much more as duress than a levy on a limited amount of property. Payment to avoid such consequences is not voluntary but compulsory, and may be recovered back.