Hess

In 1949 the Alaska Legislature, Chapter 10, Session Laws of Alaska, 1949, enacted what purported to be a general property tax for that Territory. It was the first attempt in Alaska to impose an ad valorem tax upon property in the Territory generally. The appellants are taxpayers within the Territory who sought in the court below to procure a determination and adjudication that the law in question is invalid and void, primarily for want of uniformity. In this connection it is asserted that the law violates § 9 of the Alaska Organic Act, as amended, 48 U.S.C.A. § 78 , providing with respect to the Territory that all taxes shall be uniform upon the same class of subjects, and that it operates to deny the appellants due process of law under the Fifth Amendment and the equal protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and is as well violative of the Civil Rights Act, Title 42 U.S.C.A. § 1981 , prescribing that all persons shall be subject to “like * * * taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.”

The complaint of Hess alleges that he owns real and personal property of various kinds all situated outside the boundaries of any…