Brown & Sharpe Mfg. Co. v. Cote
| Decision Date | 21 February 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 61,61 |
| Citation | 101 R.I. 668,226 A.2d 814 |
| Parties | BROWN & SHARPE MANUFACTURING COMPANY v. Louis T. COTE, Assessor of Taxes of the City of Providence. Appeal |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
This statutory petition for relief from a tax allegedly unfairly assessed as of December 31, 1964 against the plaintiff's tangible personal property was brought in the superior court under G.L.1956, § 44-5-26, against the assessor of taxes for the city of Providence. It is before us on the defendant's appeal from a judgment entered in that court denying his motion for summary judgment and granting the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment.
The controlling facts were either stipulated or are otherwise agreed to by the parties and can be briefly summarized. The plaintiff carried on the major portion of its manufacturing activities within this state and had its principal place of business in the city of Providence during the larger portion of the twelve months next preceding 12 o'clock noon on December 31, 1964 1. On May 1 of that year it caused its articles of association to be amended so that they showed the town of North Kingstown rather than Providence as its principal place of business. Thereafter, in or about the month of August 1964, it moved its executive and administrative offices from Providence to North Kingstown, and from about December 1, 1964 has carried on the major part of its Rhode Island manufacturing activities within that town.
The plaintiff in accordance with the provisions of § 44-5-15 gave defendant notice of its intention to bring in between April 1 and April 15 in the year 1965 a true and exact account of the ratable estate owned or possessed by it in or ratable in Providence on the 1964 assessment date. That account, filed in due course, consisted of more that fifty pages and enumerated thousands of items in two separate schedules, one of which purported to give a true and exact account of all ratable estate owned or possessed by it within or ratable in Providence on that day. The petitioner valued that estate at $549,010. The second schedule listed property physically situated in North Kingstown on December 31, 1964. It was valued at $10,761.093 and was claimed to be exempt from and not subject to tax by the city of Providence. 2
The defendant rejected petitioner's valuations and its claim of exemption. He assessed its ratable tangible personal estate in the following manner:
Tangible
"Acct. # Name and Address Personal Tax
"02 523 300 Brown & Sharpe $ 1,080,000 $ 42,120
Mfg. Co
235 Promenade Street
Providence, R.I.
(Made sworn statement)
"02 523 301 Brown & Sharpe 11,444,000 446,316.
Mfg. Co.
235 Promenade Street
Providence, R.I."
We need not concern ourselves with the tax assessed under account No. 02 523 300. The parties have agreed that the property which is the subject of that assessment was properly taxable by Providence and that its full and fair cash value on that date was $950,000, rather than $1,080,000 as assessed by defendant. The superior court judgment reflects that agreement and permits an amount attributable to the overvaluation to be deducted from that assessment.
The assessment under account No. 02 523 301 is against that tangible property which the parties stipulate was 'of a kind or type mentioned, enumerated and covered by G.L.R.I. sec. 44-44-10.' All of that property, sometimes hereinafter referred to as the 'assessed property' or the 'property assessed,' although situated in North Kingstown on assessment date, had in fact been physically located in Providence for the larger portion of the twelve months next preceding that date, and it is to determine whether Providence or North Kingstown had the right to tax it that plaintiff commenced this and a companion proceeding against the assessor of North Kingstown. 3 Although both causes were consolidated for hearing in the superior court, they were briefed and argued separately here 4 and will be so considered.
The principal issue is the taxable situs of the property assessed, and how §§ 44-4-10 and 44-4-24 5 should be construed.
The defendant contends that § 44-4-24 controls and makes Providence, the place where the assessed property was situated for the larger portion of the year 1964, its taxable situs. That section provides in substance that 'Except as otherwise provided by §§ 44-4-9 to 44-4-23, inclusive, or by any other law' all ratable property, both tangible and instangible, shall be taxable in the city or town wherein the owner had his principal place of abode for the larger portion of the twelve months next preceding assessment day.
The difficulty with defendant's contention is, of course, that it is 'otherwise provided' in § 44-4-10 6 that property 'of the kind or type mentioned, enumerated or covered' therein shall be taxed to the owner thereof in the town where it is 'situated.' That directive is clear, unambiguous and explicit. It made the assessed property, which the parties have stipulated was of the kind and type enumerated and covered by § 44-4-10, taxable in North Kingstown where it was situated on assessment date just as if plaintiff had resided there. No other construction makes sense.
There is nothing in Whitmarsh v. Gallotta, 84 R.I. 234, 122 A.2d 906, relied upon by defendant, which supports or even suggests a contrary result. In that case the taxpayers, resident in Little Compton on assessment date in 1952, had their principal place of abode in Providence for the larger portion of the twelve months next preceding that date. This court rejected their complaint that Providence had illegally taxed their intangibles. The distinction between the two cases is obvious. In Whitmarsh the assessment was against intangible personal property which was taxable under § 44-4-24 at the place where the owners had their principal place of abode for the larger protion of the twelve months next preceding the assessment date because the legislature had not 'otherwise provided' a taxable situs for such property. In this case, however, the legislature has, as we have already observed, 'otherwise provided' a different taxable situs for property 'of a kind or type mentioned, enumerated and covered by G.L.R.I. Sec. 44-4-10.'
The defendant argues further that a proper consideration of the purposes which prompted the 'larger portion of the twelve months' rule, first enacted in Revised Statutes 1857, chap. 38, sec. 10, and retained ever since in substantially the same form, will lead to the conclusion that Providence had jurisdiction to tax. It is, of course, true that the rule was intended to prevent tax avoidance and was designed, as Chief Justice Ames said, to remedy an evil whereby:
'Persons having a double residence, in town and country, would not unfrequently select the latter as their domicil, though they spent only the summer months there, for the purpose of escaping, so far as their personal property was concerned, the higher rate of town taxation whilst they enjoyed, during the greater portion of the year in town, all the comforts and conveniences secured by it.' Greene v. Gardiner, 6 R.I. 242, 244.
Notwithstanding that purpose, however, the legislature by its adoption of that rule in nowise evinced an intention to recant its earlier limited rejection of the traditional concept under which personal property was taxable at the domicile of its owner. Instead, in sec. 12 of the same chapter, following the format of ...
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