The Collector v. Beggs

Mr. C. H. Hill, Assistant Attorney-General, for the collector, plaintiff in error: The judgment below was plainly wrong under the act. The distiller used so much grain; this the case admits. He did not, in fact, get from it all which the assessors had, in fixing the 'true producing capacity' of his distillery, fixed as the amount which he could have got. But that cannot now be helped. They fixed (if indeed the distiller did get all that was possible from his distillery) the true producing capacity too high. And he ought at once to have appealed, as the 10th section allowed him to do, to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. That section provides a complete system for measuring the producing capacity of a distillery, and for correcting any errors made in such measurement. Any error which is made by the assessors must be corrected in the manner pointed out, namely, by the appeal. Then a new estimate may be made. But section 20 would seem to place the question beyond a doubt. The 80 per cent. therein required to be assessed is the '80 per centum of the producing capacity of the distillery, as estimated under the provisions of this act,' namely, under section 10.