Suburban Title & Investment Corporation v. District of Columbia

PER CURIAM.

During the tax year 1948 petitioner, a Delaware corporation doing a title insurance business, had its statutory office in Delaware and its principal office in the District of Columbia. It had no other offices. The Board of Tax Appeals found without dispute that petitioner did nothing outside the District “with the exception of the work of searching titles, which was conducted in the court houses at the county seats of the counties in which the land involved was situated. Its title records, except those currently in use in the county seats, were kept in Washington, as were also its books of accounts and corporate records. Its directors had their meetings in the District; the title opinions were written, and titles were issued in the District. It had nine or ten employees in Maryland and sixteen employees in the District. Petitioner insured titles at the request of lending institutions, most of which were located in the District, and for other persons, some of whom resided in the District and others of whom did not. * * * Payments were made to petitioner at its Washington office. All of its bank accounts were with banks in the District.” Petitioner concedes it “transacts all of its business in the District of Columbia. It prepares all title certificates, and conducts here all operations and transactions which are incidental to its business of issuing title insurance, such as settlements of real estate transactions, preparing conveyances, comparing papers and documents, noting the same, etc.”

The Board of Tax Appeals held, rightly we think, that petitioner was taxable for the tax year 1948 under D.C.Code (1940) § 47 — 1702, which imposes on title insurance companies and certain others a tax of “one and one-half per centum of their gross receipts in the District of Columbia.” We think it immaterial that petitioner’s business related entirely to Maryland land. A section of the Code not now in issue, § 47 — 1806, imposes on insurance companies a tax of two per cent of the “consideration received on all insurance and annuity contracts on risks in the District of Columbia.” We think the words we are construing, “gross receipts in the District of Columbia,” are not equivalent to “consideration received * ■ * * on risks in the District of Columbia.” In our opinion the Pickford case (District of Columbia v. Pickford), 86 U.S.App.D.C. —, 179 F.2d 271, which we decided December 12, 1949, is not in point.

Affirmed.