Adams v. Luce

• Decision Date: 20 November 1905
• Citation: 39 So. 418,87 Miss. 220
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: WIRT ADAMS, STATE REVENUE AGENT, v. GREGORY M. LUCE

39 So. 418

87 Miss. 220

WIRT ADAMS, STATE REVENUE AGENT, v. GREGORY M. LUCE

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 20, 1905

FROM the circuit court of Greene county, HON. WILLIAM T. MCDONALD Judge.

Adams state revenue agent, the appellant, was plaintiff, and Luce appellee, was defendant in the court below. From a judgment in defendant's favor the plaintiff appealed to the supreme court.

In the year 1900 there was a general assessment of lands, and appellee rendered a statement of his land to the assessor valuing the same at $ 3.50 per acre. This valuation was entered by the assessor on his roll. The assessor did not complete his assessment roll and file it with the clerk of the board of supervisors by the first Monday in July, as required by Code 1892, § 3782, and the board of supervisors, at its meeting on the first Monday in July, extended the time for the completion of the roll to the first Monday in August, and at its meeting on the last-named date, finding the roll still incomplete, granted a further extension of time to August 20th. The assessment roll was filed August 18th, and at the meeting of the board on the first Monday in September the roll was accepted, and the board, in attempting to equalize the taxes, increased the valuation of the lands of appellee, without notice to him, from $ 3.50 to $ 5 per acre, and made an excessive levy of taxes. The assessment was adjudged void by the chancery court in a suit to which appellee was a party, and the decree to that effect was affirmed by the supreme court. While the litigation was pending the appellee paid taxes at a rate less than that levied by the board of supervisors, and took the tax collector's receipt for the sum paid, which amount was paid into the state and county treasuries by the tax collector. The revenue agent instituted this suit, seeking to treat all the land of the appellee so assessed as having escaped taxation, and demanded that the same be assessed for taxation at the true value --to wit, $ 5 per acre. The board of supervisors approved the back assessment, and on appeal to the circuit court a trial was had, resulting in a peremptory instruction in favor of the appellee, dismissing the suit.

Affirmed.

J. E. Alderman, for appellant.

Counsel cites the following authorities: Code 1892, § 3782; Code 1892, § 3784; McGuire v. Union Co., 76 Miss. 868 (s.c., 25 So. 367); Brothers v. Beck, 75 Miss. 482 (s.c., 22 South Rep., 944); Laws 1894, sec. 3, ch. 34, p. 29; Code 1892, § 3772; Constitution 1890, sec. 112; Crawford v. McLaurin, 83 Miss. 265 (s.c., 35 So. 209, 949); Revenue Agent v. Clarke, 80 Miss. 134 (s.c., 31 So. 216); State v. Ader, 68 Miss. 487 (s.c., 9 South. Rep., 645); Richardson v. Toliver, 71 Miss. 966 (s.c., 16 So. 213); Timberlake v. Compress Co., 72 Miss. 323 (s.c., 16 So. 530); Whitney v. Cook, 53 Miss. 551; Carson v. Leathers, 57 Miss. 650; Harris v. State, 71 Miss. 462 (s.c., 14 South Rep., 266).

Ford & White, for appellee.

Appellant's whole case is predicated of the idea that property has "escaped taxation" under the law, when the board of supervisors, or tax collector, or other officer, has departed from the course, or method, adopted by the legislature for assessing and collecting taxes in such a sense as to invalidate a tax sale, and that whenever it is apparent that there has been an invalid exercise of the taxing powers, by the regularly constituted authorities, the law will treat all payments of taxes under such invalid proceedings as having been voluntarily made at the peril of taxpayers, and that at once the revenue agent is vested with a power and discretion to proceed against such persons as in his opinion have not contributed what he, the revenue agent, thinks a fair proportion of taxes. Such a construction of the powers of the revenue agent would be subversive of every element of uniformity and equality of taxation, and would substitute for the regular and uniform procedure provided by law for all persons and property the mere will, or perhaps caprice, of an executive officer. If the revenue agent may, for purely technical reasons, investigate into the proceedings of the fiscal agents of the counties, and whenever, in his opinion, an error or mistake has been made, which would enable the taxpayer to defeat a tax sale of his property, treat such a taxpayer as a delinquent and his property as having escaped taxation, and proceed against him under the provisions of the back-tax law, then in all reason and fairness it should also be held that he is bound to proceed against the whole county, and not against specially selected individuals and properties.

Where the fiscal agents of the counties have had an opportunity to pass upon the valuation of property for assessment, and have actually passed upon it, and a payment is made upon such valuation, such payment is final, and the only property that can be made subject-matter of an assessment by the revenue agent is property that has not been assessed at all. There is no contention but that every acre of the land embraced in this proceeding was actually entered upon the assessment roll of Greene county for 1900 at a valuation of $ 3.50 per acre; nor is there any contention but that appellee has paid taxes into the hands of the tax collector for the fiscal years 1900 and 1901 at the highest rate the law permits upon this land, upon the $ 3.50 per acre valuation. But because appellee, among other taxpayers feeling themselves imposed upon on account of what they considered arbitrary discrimination by this board of supervisors, appealed to the courts and successfully enjoined the increased valuation made by the board at its September, 1900, meeting, they are proceeded against by the revenue agent on the ground that this property has escaped taxation.

We insist that the test as to whether property had escaped taxation so as to become the subject of back-tax proceedings by the revenue agent is whether the property was listed for taxation on the county assessment roll and where the board of supervisors had an opportunity to assess it. Revenue Agent v. Clarke, 80 Miss. 134 (31 So. 216). It is not competent for the board of supervisors or the assessor to reassess property for back taxes because the assessed valuation was too low. Bank v. Lafayette County, 79 Miss. 152 (s.c., 29 So. 825).

The policy of employing the said revenue agent to ferret out and collect taxes upon property which has escaped taxation was a good one, and has become a part of the public policy of the state of Mississippi, and when confined to the objects and purposes for which that officer is employed is, we submit, a most just and wise law. But we do insist that it was never the purpose of the legislature to vest in any single person any such autocratic powers as are asserted in this proceeding--that is, to authorize the agent, in the exercise of what he should conceive to be a discretion, to go into a county and declare an assessment roll valid as to one person, or set of persons, and invalid as to others.

WHITFIELD, C. J. TRULY, J., dissents.

OPINION

WHITFIELD, C. J.

We...