Prior Law

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7213- Criminal Penalties for Unauthorized Disclosure of Information: Prior Law

 

 

[1 USTC ¶101]J. W. Reavis, plaintiff, v. C. F. Routzahn, Collector of Internal Revenue, defendant

District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, Decided October 30, 19 24Under the provisions of section 257 of the Revenue Act of 1924, income tax returns are public records and injunction will not lie to restrain a collector of internal revenue from publishing the name, address, and amount of income tax paid by a taxpayer for the year 1923. Section 3167, Revised Statutes, as reenacted by section 1311 of the Revenue Act of 1921, and section 1018 of the Revenue Act of 1924, did not create a property or personal right in the return filed by a taxpayer but was enacted for the purpose of creating a public crime which may be prosecuted and punished as an offense against the public.

WESTENHAVER, Judge:

In the case of J. W. Reavis v. C. F. Routzahn, collector of internal revenue for this district, which was heard yesterday afternoon on the application of plaintiff for preliminary injunction, I have reached a conclusion, which I will now announce. The plaintiff's petition is quite brief; in fact, it is less than a page in length. It avers that the plaintiff is an income-tax payer within this collection district; that on or about March 15, 19 24, under the Revenue Act of 1921, he filed an income tax return for the calendar year 1923, disclosing the tax due thereunder to the United States Government. He further avers that the defendant, as collector, threatens to make available to public examination and inspection a book, list, or abstract containing the name of the plaintiff, with address and the amount of income tax paid by him under the return aforesaid, in violation of section 1311, Revenue Act of 1921, and of the personal and property rights of the plaintiff. It is upon the basis of the facts thus briefly stated that the plaintiff asks relief.

During the argument, and in response to questions from the court, plaintiff's counsel rested his case upon the infringement of his personal right. He defined that personal right as the right of every citizen to privacy in the matter of his financial income, which, it is urged, is preserved by the provisions of the Income Tax Law. The petition as read shows that he claims this action to be in violation of his property right; but, when I directed attention to the fact that the petition disclosed no property right which was to be invaded, stated no injury or damage or facts from which any inference of injury or damage to a property right could be inferred, and, further, that in a bill in equity for injunction to prevent trespass or injury to property, it was necessary to make a showing of facts which would make a case of irreparable injury--I say that when this was called to counsel's attention, counsel for plaintiff rested the right of action upon the invasion, wrongly, of a personal right of privacy preserved by section 1311 of the Revenue Act of 1921, reenacting section 3167, Revised Statutes. That section is also reenacted in the Revenue Act of 1924, and is in force. Obviously, it seems to me, plaintiff has no property right in his income tax return. After return is made pursuant to a valid statute, the property in the return belongs to the Government. As stated by section 257, Revenue Act of 1921, and the corresponding section of the Revenue Act of 1924, these income tax returns become public records of the Government of the United States . It is difficult, in fact, I think it is impossible, to draw any distinction between a disclosure of a return thus made, pursuant to a valid law, to the collector of internal revenue, and a like disclosure made as to one's personal property to the assessor or county auditor of the State of Ohio . It seems to me that the situation of the taxpayer is the same in both cases. It seems to me that the return of income stands upon no different, other, or higher footing than the list made by a person of his personal property and the valuation placed thereon, particularly as that personal property tax return requires a disclosure to be made of one's cash in bank or in one's pocket, one's debits, and certain other information of a nature just as private as one's gross income, under the tax law. If that is so, the Government may, of course, do what it pleases with these returns after it gets them. It would push us back to the question, in that event, of what the Government intended should be done with them, and, in the ultimate analysis, the question will have to be decided somewhere or some time, whenever the jurisdiction of a court competent to decide that question is properly invoked.

It is claimed on behalf of plaintiff that section 3167, incorporated, as I have said, in section 1311 of the Revenue Act of 1921, requires that such returns and the disclosures therein contained be kept secret. It may be true that such is the force of that section. It is undoubtedly the force of that section as to certain matters, and it was also no doubt the force of that section as to the matter now in controversy prior to the Revenue Act of 1924. But what is that section, and what right does it recognize or does it confer upon the man who makes the income tax return? That section makes it a crime for a collector and certain agents of the United States to make use of these Government records in certain ways. It also makes it a crime for certain other persons to make use of these Government records or of information that may come to one's knowledge of their contents, in certain ways. It is not necessary for me to stop and state the manner in which collectors and subordinate agents are forbidden to misuse these public records or the information therein disclosed; nor is it necessary for me to stop and specify the way in which it would be a crime for other persons not employees of the Government to misuse or to make use of these Government records or of the information therein disclosed.

But the question is this: Does the statute making it a crime for a collector or other persons to misuse Government records or to misuse information therein contained, confer upon private citizens a right in those records in the nature, as it is put here, of a right of privacy, a right of a kind which some courts have protected under the denomination of a right of privacy, and which a great majority of the court say is a right unknown to the law? I am profoundly of the conviction that section 3167 as thus reenacted is enacted for the purpose of creating a public crime, or defining and announcing a wrong against the public which may be prosecuted and punished as an offense against the public in the way in which other misdemeanors and felonies may be punished when committed against the public; but it is not intended thereby to create any other or additional right in those public records in favor of the person who contributed to make that record than the private citizen has in any other public record which may be misused in violation of the statutory prohibition. That being true, and I think that conclusion is unescapable, then what the plaintiff is asking here is that the collector of internal revenue be enjoined from committing an offense against the public, and, as an additional reason why he should be thus enjoined, is lurking in the background the further suggestion that if the collector commits the first crime, it may induce other persons to commit other and perhaps greater crimes. It is not the law that equity has jurisdiction to intervene in a controversy of that character. I have reviewed the authorities cited by counsel. These authorities are directed to the proposition that personal rights, as distinguished from a property right, may sometimes, and under certain circumstances, be protected by a court of equity through an injunction. Even if I should adopt the view of the authorities upon which plaintiff's counsel rely, it would still not advance the argument. I should still be left with the proposition which I have just announced and which would bar relief, even under the limited view of the authorities cited. However, although it may have been a work of supererogation to have made the examination and may be an unwise thing now to express any opinion as to the conclusion to which I come, still I think it may be helpful if I do advert to the leading authorities on that subject. Before doing so, I wish to call attention to another aspect of this situation.

As announced in argument started yesterday afternoon, I am a resident of this collection district and I have made a tax return; and that tax return is subject to be dealt with by the collector, and may be dealt with by the collector in the same manner in which the plaintiff complains that his tax return is likely to be dealt with, wrongfully. Ordinarily an interest of that kind in a controversy which is brought before a judge is regarded as a disqualification. If I should treat it as a disqualification, it is probable that there is no judge or tribunal to whom the parties can apply. I announced yesterday, facetiously but none the less earnestly, that should an injunction issue in this case, it would not be made applicable to my own return, but that the collector was to be free to use it in any manner he saw fit, to show it to any person regardless of age or sex or color. The same observation still applies. But on reflection, I do not believe that this disqualification obtains. The situation here is the same as in Evans v. Gore (253 U. S., 245 [1 USTC ¶36]), in which the Supreme Court justices found themselves obliged to pass upon the constitutionality of the income tax law as applied to the salaries of Federal officials in office, whose salaries were protected against diminution by Act of Congress.

Coming to the question of the right of a court of equity to issue an injunction to protect a purely personal right, and also coming to the question of what property or personal right exists in the so-called right of privacy, I may say that there is a vast body of literature on the subject. One of the original thinkers, who finds the law magazines of the country the only form that will lend aid to their efforts to establish as particular theory of law, has been industriously at work for many years in the Harvard Law Review to establish the doctrine of a personal right of privacy which may be protected, if not by injunction, at least by an action at law for damages. I think most of the confusion in the law has come from that source. But the great weight of the law is that an individual in society has not any property or personal right in privacy. If the aggressions are not of such a nature as amount to a trespass, i. e., assault and battery, or if they are not of such a nature as to amount to a libel or slander but merely mortify, humiliate, or hurt his feelings, or put him in a ridiculous and contemptible attitude not amounting to libel or slander, he is helpless. I think the leading case is the Roberson case, Roberson v. Rochester Folding Box Co. (171 N. Y., 539). It is the case, as counsel will recall, in which an eminently modest, respectable young lady of good family was complaining that a flouring mill company, in some manner unknown to her, had come into possession of her photograph and was using it on a calendar. It was such a good likeness that everybody recognized it as her. The law of the case is well summarized in the headnote, which I shall read:

An individual's so-called right of privacy, founded upon the claim that he has the right to pass through this world, if he wills, without having his picture published, his business enterprises discussed, his successful experiments written up for the benefit of others, or his eccentricities commented upon either in handbills, circulars, catalogues, periodicals or newspapers, and necessarily, that the things which may not be written and published of him must not be spoken of him by his neighbors, whether the comment be favorable or otherwise, does not exist in the law and is not enforceable in equity.

The doctrine is there stated clearly. But to indicate that there are good reasons for different people entertaining different views, and also for the minority decision cited by counsel for plaintiff, it ought to be added that while Chief Justice Alton B. Parker wrote that opinion and procured the concurrence of about two-thirds of the judges in his conclusions, there were a third, and as able men as Judge Bartlett and Judge Gray in that third, dissenting from the law and from the conclusions reached.

In Raymond v. Russell (143 Mass., 295) an injunction was denied to one who applied for it against one of these mercantile agencies which had compiled and was going to circulate a report of his credit and standing of his business, claimed to be false and to be injurious. In Marlin Fire Arms Co. v. Shields (171 N. Y., 384) an injunction was denied on the application of one of the parties seeking to enjoin malicious and unfounded criticism of a firearm that it was publishing and offering for sale. In Henry v. Cherry & Webb (30 R. I. , 13, 136 Amer. St. Rep. , 928) relief was denied by injunction or otherwise to a young man whose photograph was taken and used to advertise. I think, chauffeurs' coats, caps, and uniforms, that not being his occupation and the use of it being quite detrimental to his social standing. (Atkinson v. Doherty & Co., 121 Mich. , 372.) The personal representative of the widow and children of a distinguished politician and public man sought to enjoin the use of his picture and of his name on a 5-cent cigar, and no relief was granted. In Angelus v. Sullivan (C. C. A.) (246 Fed., 54), an alien, claiming that he was entitled to exemption from military service under the selective service law and a regulation issued, applied for but was denied an injunction to prevent the draft board from certifying him into the service, thereby denying him the right to the exemption claimed.

One of the cases cited by counsel for plaintiff was the one in which it was held that the writer of private letters to another might obtain an injunction against their being published, on the ground that they were private letters and his right of privacy was invaded, or that it was a purely personal right, not a property right, because the letters admitted they had no value. I do not doubt that case holds as stated by counsel, but that is not the great weight of authority. The almost unbroken line of authority from the day of Lord Eldon down to the present is that private letters which have been written and sent to another, having no other literary value, and having no other value than as private letters thus written, may not by injunction prevent their use and publication, even though the use and publication thereof may subject him to much distress of mind, humiliation, and mortification, provided there is no libel involved in the performance. The cases of this kind are almost too numerous to mention. It is astonishing, when one looks into the books, to see what mean things some people try to do to another in various ways, and how the courts have been obliged consistently to adhere to the fundamental principle, i. e., that courts are established for the purpose of trying lawsuits for protecting property rights and that a court of equity can not be converted into disciplinary tribunal to correct people's manners or morals or discipline them generally instead of interfering only in order to prevent irreparable injury. In Brandreth v. Lance & Paige (N. Y., 24), a living person sought to prevent the publication of a biography of himself, the contents of which he highly disapproved and made a pretty strong showing that it would injure his reputation as a manufacturer and as being a gross libel upon him personally. If it was libelous he should resort to his action in damages, because a court of equity will not enjoin a libel if there is nothing else than the fact that a libel is threatened. In Chappell v. Stewart (82 Md., 323) a court of equity refused to intervene or grant an injunction when some officious person had hired detectives to watch and supervise that person from day to day and from time to time, very much to his discomfort and annoyance.

The injunction in this case will be denied. Unless the plaintiff desires to amend the bill, it will stand dismissed on the two grounds; first, that the plaintiff has neither a right of property nor a right of privacy in these income tax returns, but, on the contrary, these income tax returns are public and Government documents which belong to the Government and over which it has control; and, second, that no right of property and no personal right is conferred upon the plaintiff by reason of the criminal section of the law, making it an offense for a Government agent or other person to misuse these public documents; and, thirdly, if there was some personal right in him to have them kept secret, a court of equity would not take jurisdiction, for the reasons stated. * * *

 

 

[1 USTC ¶136] United States of America v. Walter S. Dickey and Ralph Ellis

Supreme Court of the United States, No. 768, 268 US 378, 45 SCt 558, Decided May 25, 19 25

In Error to the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Missouri.Newspapers may publish the lists required by the 1924 Act to be furnished by Collectors showing the names and addresses of taxpayers and the amounts paid by them as income taxes; the prohibition against publication being limited to such as is "not provided by law." Affirming District Court decision, 3 F. (2d) 190.

Mr. Justice SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court:

An indictment was returned in the court below charging defendants in error as owner-editor and managing editor of several newspapers published at Kansas City , Missouri , with printing and publishing therein parts of certain designated federal income tax returns, showing the names of the taxpayers and the amounts of their income taxes. Demurrers were interposed to the indictment upon the ground that the facts set forth were not sufficient in law to charge any crime against the defendants, because the information so published was open to public inspection, constituted a public record available to the general public, and, consequently, was proper matter for news publication; and that if any statute attempted to forbid or penalize such publication, it contravened the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution which prohibits Congress from making any law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. The court below sustained the demurrers and dismissed the indictment. 3 Fed. (2d) 190.

The indictment is drawn under that part of §1018 of the Revenue Act of June 2, 19 24, c. 234, 43 Stat. 253, 344-346, which reenacts R. S. §3167, copied in the margin. ¹ Section 257(b) of the same act, 43 Stat. 293, provides:

The Commissioner shall as soon as practicable in each year cause to be prepared and made available to public inspection in such manner as he may determine, in the office of the collector in each internal revenue district and in such other places as he may determine, lists containing the name and the postoffice address of each person making an income tax return in such district, together with the amount of the income tax paid by such person.

The prohibition against publication contained in §3167, it will be seen, is not absolute, but subject to possible qualification by other provisions of law. The language is that it shall be unlawful to print or publish in any manner "not provided by law" any income return or any part thereof, etc. On behalf of defendants in error, it is contended that §257(b) effects such a qualification. To this the Government replies that the extent to which that provision goes is to authorize the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to make available for public inspection lists showing names of taxpayers and amounts of taxes paid by them; and that this falls short of authorizing the printing and publishing of the information contained in the lists.

Something is said in the briefs, and was said at the bar, as to the wisdom, on the one hand, of secrecy, and, on the other hand, of publicity, in respect of tax returns. But that is a matter addressed to the discretion of the law-making department, with which the courts are not concerned, so long as no constitutional right or privilege of the taxpayer is invaded; and there is no contention that there is any such invasion here, whichever view may be adopted. The problem, therefore, is, primarily, one of statutory construction, the disposition of which will determine whether the constitutional question as to the freedom of the press needs to be considered. For the purposes of the inquiry, we assume the power of Congress to forbid or to allow such publication, as in the judgment of that body the public interest may require.

The Commissioner is directed to make the lists of taxpayers and amounts paid available for public inspection in the office of the collector and elsewhere as he may determine. His discretion in that respect is limited only by his own sense of what is wise and expedient. And the inquiry at once suggests itself: To what end is this discretion, so vested in him, to be exercised? The obvious answer is: To the end that the names and addresses of the taxpayers and the amounts paid by them may be generally known. To the extent of the information authorized to be put into the lists, this is the manifest policy of the statute, with which the application of §3167 to the present case, it fairly may be argued, will be out of harmony. Whatever one's opinion may be in respect of its wisdom, the policy having been adopted as an aid to the enforcement of the revenue laws or to the accomplishment of some other object deemed important, it is not easy to conclude that Congress nevertheless intended to exclude and severely to penalize the effective form of secondary publicity now under consideration. Information, which everybody is at liberty to acquire and the acquisition of which Congress seemed especially desirous of facilitating, in the absence of some clear and positive provision to the contrary, cannot be regarded otherwise than as public property, to be passed on to others as freely as the possessors of it may choose. The contrary view requires a very dry and literal reading of the statute quite inconsistent with its legislative history and the known and declared objects of its framers.

Prior to the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment, the policy in respect of tax publicity, as evidenced by congressional legislation, had not been uniform. Generally, the earlier acts had been liberal and the later ones restrictive in character. Section 3167 R. S. first appeared in substantially its present form, in the Act of August 27, 18 94, §34, c. 349, 28 Stat. 509, 557. It was re-enacted by the Revenue Acts of 1913, 1916, 1919 and 1921, and by the existing Act of 1924. The Act of 1913, c. 16, 38 Stat. 177, provided that tax returns should be open to inspection only upon order of the President; but allowed state officers under certain conditions to have access to the returns showing the names and income of corporations, etc. The Act of 1919, §257, c. 18, 40 Stat. 1086, in addition to this, allowed stockholders of any corporation to examine its returns upon conditions therein stated. That act further provided (p. 1087) that the Commissioner should cause to be prepared and made available to public inspection, etc., "lists containing the names and the post-office addresses of all individuals making income tax returns in such district"; and this was expanded by the present law, §257(b), Act of 1924, to include the amount of the income tax paid.

It is significant that, while these progressively liberal publicity amendments were being made, §3167--to the general rule of which they were in terms opposed--was carried along by re-enactment without change, plainly indicating that, in the opinion of Congress, by the application of the qualifying clause "not provided by law," the scope of the general rule against publication would become automatically narrowed to the extent of the liberalizing exceptions. The congressional proceedings and debates and the reports of the conferees on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, which we have examined but think it unnecessary to review, strongly confirm our conclusion that Congress, understanding that this limitation would apply, intended to open the information contained in the lists to full publicity.

As a result, we hold that, to the extent provided by §257(b), Congress meant to abandon the policy of secrecy altogether and to exclude from the operation of §3167 all forms of publicity, including that here in question.

Judgment affirmed.

Mr. Justice STONE took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

¹ "Sec. 3167. It shall be unlawful for any collector, deputy collector, agent, clerk, or other officer or employee of the United States to divulge or to make known in any manner whatever not provided by law to any person the operations, style of work, or apparatus of any manufacturer or producer visited by him in the discharge of his official duties, or the amount or source of income, profits, losses, expenditures, or any particular thereof, set forth or disclosed in any income return, or to permit any income return or copy thereof or any book containing any abstract or particular thereof to be seen or examined by any person except as provided by law; and it shall be unlawful for any person to print or publish in any manner whatever not provided by law any income return, or any part thereof or source of income, profits, losses, or expenditures appearing in any income return; and any offense against the foregoing provision shall be a misdemeanor and be punished by a fine not exceeding $1,000 or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, at the discretion of the court; and if the offender be an officer or employee of the United States he shall be dismissed from office or discharged from employment."

 

 

 

[36-2 USTC ¶9410] United States of America v. David L. Olster

District Court of the United States in and for the Middle District of Pennsylvania , No. 9068. October Term, 1935, 15 FSupp 623, Decided July 3, 19 36

Motion to quash indictment.Motion to quash an indictment is granted, where the indictment charged the defendant, while acting as Deputy Internal Revenue Collector, with unlawfully divulging information in a processing tax return, which is held not an "income return" within the meaning of Sec. 3167, R. S. (relied on in the indictment), which provides for fine or imprisonment or both where a deputy collector unlawfully publishes any part of any "income return."

Hon. Frederick V. Follmer, United States Attorney, Arthur A. Maguire, Esquire, Assistant United States Attorney, attorneys for the United States of America. Ladner & Ladner, Esquires, 1501 Walnut Street , Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , attorneys for defendant.

Opinion

JOHNSON, D. J.:

This is a motion to quash an indictment, charging the defendant, David L. Olster, a Deputy Internal Revenue Collector of the United States, with violation of the Internal Revenue Laws, 26 U. S. C. A. 55(g).

The indictment contains four counts, each charging a similar offense by the defendant but involving a different person and at a different time. The substance of the first count is that the defendant, while acting as Deputy Internal Revenue Collector, knowing the amount or source of income, profits, losses, expenditures and other particulars set forth in the processing tax return of the Federal Cigar Company, Inc., which processing tax return was filed in conformity with the regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Agriculture, by authority of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, did knowingly, wilfully and unlawfully divulge to one Samuel Olster the amount of tax due to the Government as set forth in the said processing tax return, in a manner not provided by law, the said Samuel Olster being a person not entitled to have divulged to him the said information, all of which the said David L. Olster well knew to be unlawful.

The defendant moved to quash the indictment for the reason that the Agricultural Adjustment Act and all regulations promulgated thereunder have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in United States of America v. William M. Butler, et al., Receivers of Hoosac Mills Corporation [¶9039 herein], and for the reason that the indictment is founded upon certain processing tax returns, which are not income returns and, therefore, are not within the provisions of Title 26, section 55 G of the Internal Revenue Statute, upon which the indictment was founded.

The government contends that the section of the Internal Revenue Law upon which the indictment was drawn is still subsisting and the invalidating of the Agricultural Adjustment Act had no effect upon said section which denounces the divulging of information by an officer of the government, whether the information was obtained constitutionally or unconstitutionally. The government further contends that the position taken by defendant, that the divulging of information contained in a processing tax return is not such "income return" as is contemplated under the Internal Revenue Laws, is too restrictive of the phrase "any income return," but that such phrase should be interpreted to include a processing tax return.

The question raised by the motion to quash is whether a processing tax return is an "income return" within the meaning of the Internal Revenue Act, 26 U. S. C. A. 55 G, making it a crime for a Deputy Internal Revenue Collector to divulge information disclosed "in any income return."

[Penal Law Construed]

The pertinent part of the statute on which the indictment is founded is as follows: "It shall be unlawful for any collector, deputy collector, agent, clerk, or other officer or employee of the United States to divulge or to make known in any manner whatever not provided by law to any person the amount or source of income, profits, losses, expenditures, or any particular thereof, set forth or disclosed in any income return, * * * and any offense against the foregoing provision shall be a misdemeanor and be punished, etc."

The above provision making it a misdemeanor for employees of the United States to disclose information contained in income returns in a manner not provided by law was last set forth in the General Administrative Provisions of the Revenue Act of 1926, section 1115, 44 Stat. 117. The provisions of that Act relating to publicity of returns and authorizing the purposes for which disclosure of returns may be made and the persons entitled to such disclosure was contained in "Title II--Income Tax" section 257, 44 Stat. 51. The Revenue Act of 1932 and 1934 under "Title I--Income Tax" cited as the Income Tax Act of 1923 and 1934 respectively in section 55, "Publicity of Returns," provides "(a) Returns made under this title shall be open to inspection in the same manner, to the same extent, and subject to the same provisions of law, including penalties, as returns made under Title II of the Revenue Act of 1926." Under the same title of those two acts, section 61 provides that "All administrative * * * provisions of law * * * so far as applicable, are hereby extended to and made a part of this title."

The Act of April 19, 19 35, 49 Stat. 158, which amends section 55(b) of the Revenue Act of 1934, provides: "All income returns filed under this title * * * shall be opened to inspection by an official, body, or commission, etc."

In construing the penal provision of the Act making it a misdemeanor to disclose information from an income return in a manner not provided by law, regard must be had to the sections of the same Act providing for the lawful manner of disclosing such information. This principle is well stated in United States v. Katz et al., 5 F. (2d) 527 at p. 528: "In construing a section of an Act, regard must first be had to the language of the clause itself, and, second, to other clauses in the same Act, and that construction should be adopted which makes the whole Act stand consistently together or reduces the inconsistency to the smallest possible limits."

Regard must also be had to the rules that penal statutes should be strictly construed and will not be enlarged by implication or intendment 59 C. J. Sec. 659, p. 1113.

The penal provision of the Revenue Act upon which the indictment is based uses the broad term "any income return," making it unlawful to disclose information therefrom in a manner not provided by law. When this provision is construed with the other sections of the same Act to determine what is the lawful manner of disclosing information, such sections are found under "Title II--Income Tax" and the term "Returns" made under this title must necessarily mean income tax returns. This is further confirmed by the Act of 1935, supra, which amends the Revenue Act of 1934, section 55(b) found under "Title I--Income Tax" where it provides "All income returns filed under this title * * * shall be open to inspection * * *" It follows that when Congress used the terms "Returns" and "Income Returns" in providing the lawful manner of disclosing information from income tax returns, Congress also meant income tax returns when in the same Act it used the term "any income return" in providing the punishment for the unlawful disclosure of information therefrom. The term "any income return," especially when contained in a penal statute, must be confined to the returns required to be made under the Revenue Act of which it is a part, and cannot be extended to include processing tax returns required by the Agricultural Adjustment Act, a totally different Act. The returns required by that Act were for excise taxes, not income taxes. Such returns could not be considered as income tax returns nor could they be extended to mean an "income return" since they did not disclose any income, unless the meaning of income were unduly strained, and such construction cannot obtain in dealing with a criminal statute.

And now, July 3rd, 1936, it is ordered that the motion to quash the indictment be and hereby is sustained and the indictment is quashed.