Board of Sup'rs of Lauderdale Co. v. Citizens' Nat. Bank of Meridian

• Decision Date: 27 January 1919
• Docket Number: 20395,|20396,20397
• Citation: 80 So. 530,119 Miss. 165
• Parties: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF LAUDERDALE CO. v. CITIZENS' NATIONAL BANK OF MERIDIAN. SAME v. GUARANTY, LOAN TRUST & BANKING CO. SAME v. FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF MERIDIAN
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

80 So. 530

119 Miss. 165

BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF LAUDERDALE CO. v. CITIZENS' NATIONAL BANK OF MERIDIAN.

SAME v. GUARANTY, LOAN TRUST & BANKING CO.

SAME v. FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF MERIDIAN

No. 20397, 20395,|20396

Supreme Court of Mississippi

January 27, 1919

Division B

1. APPEAL AND ERROR. Review. Dependence of evidence. Record. Where it does not appear affirmatively from the record that the supreme court on appeal has before it all the evidence which was before the lower court, it will not review a question depending on the evidence for its determination.

2 TAXATION. Increase of valuation. Appeal. Refund of tax paid. The refund of taxes provided for under Code of 1906, section 4310 (Hemingway's Code, section 6942), cannot be considered and ordered by the circuit court on appeal from an order of the board of supervisors increasing the valuation for taxation, though pending the appeal the owners of the property pay the tax.

HON. G C. TANN, Chancellor.

APPEAL from the chancery court of Lauderdale county, HON. G. C TANN, Chancellor.

The Citizens' National Bank of Meridian appealed to the circuit court from an order of the board of supervisors of Lauderdale county, and from judgment of that court, the board appeals. See also 79 So. 802.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment reversed in part and affirmed in part.

Frank Robertson, Assistant Attorney General, for appellant.

Baskin & Wilbourn, for appellees.

OPINION

SMITH, C. J.

The appellee, being dissatisfied with an order of the appellant increasing the value of its property for the purpose of taxation thirty-five per centum above that at which it was valued on the assessment roll, appealed therefrom to the court below, wherein a judgment was rendered in accordance with its contentions, and some time thereafter the case was appealed to this court on petition of the attorney general, who theretofore had taken no part in it.

It appears from the record that when the appellant approved the personal assessment roll for the year 1916 the appellee's capital stock, surplus, and undivided profits, less its real estate separately assessed, was valued thereon at the sum of ninety-one thousand, seven hundred and sixty dollars. In October following the state tax commission ordered the appellant to increase the assessed value of the capital stock, surplus, and undivided profits of all banks thirty-five per centum, which order was obeyed by appellant at its regular November meeting by raising arbitrarily the assessment of each bank appearing on the assessment roll thirty-five per centum, the appellant being of the opinion that the order of the tax commission must be literally complied with, and that it was without power to apportion the gross amount ordered by the commission to be added to the aggregate assessment of all the banks appearing on the assessment roll among the individual banks so as not to assess the property of any bank at an amount greater than its value. This assessment was made prior to the construction by this court of the statute creating the state tax commission in State v. Wheatley, 113 Miss. 555, 74 So. 427, and appellant's mistake in supposing that it was bound under the tax commission's order to raise the assessment of each bank appearing on its assessment roll to the amounts ordered by the tax commission was, in the opinion of the writer, a natural one, for he himself was of the opinion that the statute so intended until the majority of this court held otherwise in the Wheatley Case. When the case came on to be heard in the court below it was submitted to and tried by the judge without a jury, the judgment reciting:

"This cause coming on this day to be heard came the parties, and issue being joined, and a jury waived and the cause submitted to the court for decision, and the court having heard and considered the evidence, doth find, order, and adjudge from the competent testimony that the original assessment of the Citizens' National Bank on its capital stock, surplus, and undivided profits, less depreciation of property, and insolvent credits, and real estate otherwise assessed at the sum of ninety-one thousand, seven...