Taxation of Seats on the Stock Exchange

Abstract

The prevailing concept of "property" is often rudely tested in taxation cases. The rules laid down in statutes and decisions have often been constructed with the idea that property is a physical res-an object of sensation. As such, property would always have a “situs”- 'a relation in space to other objects of sense. But a chose in action is also property, although it is not a thing or res-an object of sense. Our concept of property has shifted; incorporeal rights have become property. And finally, "property" has ceased to describe any res, or object of sense, at all, and has become merely a bundle of legal relations-rights, powers, privileges, immunities. Such is the case whether these relations affect the consumption and enjoyment of some particular object of sense or not.