Kirtland v. Hotchkiss, 100 U.S. 491 (1879), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a state may tax a debt held by a resident upon a resident of another State. That is, the situs of the debt is with the creditor, not the debtor.Robert C. Brown, Multiple Taxation by the States - What Is Left of It?, 48 Harv. L. Rev. 407, 408 (1935). This ignores the possibility of multiple taxation.Robert C. Brown, Multiple Taxation by the States - What Is Left of It?, 48 Harv. L. Rev. 407, 426 (1935).Some Legal Problems in State Personal Income Taxation, 34 Yale L.J. 863, 870 n.70 (1925).

Background The debt in this case was a mortgage on land in a different state.Charles L. B. Lowndes, The Passing of Situs - Jurisdiction to Tax Shares of Corporate Stock, 45 Harv. L. Rev. 777, 784 n.50 (1932). The state where the creditor lived levied a tax of the land's assessed value based on his ownership of the land.Boris I. Bittker, The Taxation of Out-of-State Tangible Property, 56 Yale L.J. 640, 645 n.20 (1947)

Opinion of the court Justice Harlan wrote the unanimous opinion, published on November 17, 1879. The court held that the tax was valid.Forney Nowlin, Jurisdictional Features of State Taxation-Property and Succession Taxes, 9 Tex. L. Rev. 352, 353 (1931).

Another pertinent point from this case was that federal courts cannot interfere in state tax schemes without some kind of state interference with federal authority or a violation of the federal Constitution.Paul J. Collins, Taxation by Judicial Decree: Missouri v. Jenkins, 44 Tax Law. 1141, 1153 n.90 (1991). The court responded to the idea that unjust taxation ought to be prevented by the courts by saying that the purpose of the Constitution was not to prevent every kind of unfairness or abuse of power that may be committed by the states.Charles Grove Haines, Judicial Review of Legislation in the United States and the Doctrine of Vested Rights and of Implied Limitations of Legislatures, 3 Tex. L. Rev. 1, 10 n.24 (1924).

Subsequent developments

The doctrine mobilia sequuntur personam that this case represents was abandoned for the purpose of taxing tangibles, which are now subject to a property tax only at the situs. The Supreme Court declared as such in Union Refrigerator Transit Co. v. Kentucky (1905). Even so, the doctrine and Kirtland remained good law for intangibles after that.Taxation-Bonds and Mortgages As Tangible Property, 37 Yale L.J. 676 (1928).

See also Maguire v. Trefry

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