Commissioner of Corporations and Taxation v. Assessors of Springfield

• Decision Date: 14 September 1953
• Parties: COMMISSIONER OF CORPORATIONS AND TAXATION v. ASSESSORS OF SPRINGFIELD.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 550

114 N.E.2d 550

330 Mass. 433

COMMISSIONER OF CORPORATIONS AND TAXATION v. ASSESSORS OF SPRINGFIELD.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued May 6, 1953.

Decided Sept. 14, 1953.

H. William Radovsky, Fall River, for appellant.

Charles D. Sloan, City Sol., Springfield, for Board of Assessors of Springfield.

Before QUA, C. J., and LUMMUS, RONAN, SPALDING and COUNIHAN, JJ.

QUA, Chief Justice.

We are unable to discover anything in this appeal that has not been decided in the previous litigation relating to the assessment of property of telephone and telegraph companies in the city of Springfield. Commissioner of Corporations & Taxation v. Assessors of Springfiled, 329 Mass. 419, 108 N.E.2d 670; Assessors of Springfield v. New England Telephone & Telegraph Co., 330 Mass. 198, 112 N.E.2d 260.

On February 25, 1952, the commissioner, in accordance with the provisions of G.L. (Ter.Ed.) c. 59, § 39, as amended by St.1933, c. 254, § 36, and St.1939, c. 451, § 22, ¹ certified to the assessors the valuations at which the machinery, poles, wires and underground conduits, wires and pipes of American Telephone and Telegraph Company, New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, and Western Union Telegraph Company ² located in Springfield should be assessed as of January 1, 1952. The assessors, deeming themselves aggrieved on the ground that the commissioner's valuations were too low, appealed to the Appellate Tax Board under the provisions of section 39. That board held a hearing which began of December 3, 1952, and later, on December 17, 1952, rendered a majority decision in which it more than doubled the valuations certified by the commissioner to the assessors.

At the beginning of the hearing before the board, on December 3, 1952, the commissioner moved that the assessors' appeal to the board be dismissed as moot. The motion ought to have been granted for the reason that any assessment made after December 1 upon any valuation by the board would necessarily be made too late to enable the taxpayers to apply to the commissioner for an abatement under section 73, which requires application 'on or before December first of the year to which the tax relates'. ³ This same point was decided in Commissioner of Corporations & Taxation v. Assessors of Springfield, 329 Mass. 419, at page 422, 108 N.E.2d 670, at page 672, where we said, 'Viewing the pertinent statutory provisions as a whole, it is clear that the Legislature intended the decision of the Appellate Tax Board to be 'final and conclusive, except as provided in section seventy-three, relative to abatements.' As between the commissioner and the Appellate Tax Board, the commissioner under § 73 has the later function to perform. He has the duty to make an abatement if he finds a company taxed 'at more than its just proportion.' or upon an assessment of property 'in excess of its fair cash value.' Where the Appellate Tax Board defers its decision until after December first, the later function of the commissioner on abatements would become a dead letter. It seems plain to us that the Legislature never meant that to happen.' In Assessors of Springfield v. New England Telephone & Telegraph Co., 330 Mass. 198, at page 200, 112 N.E.2d 260, at page 262, in referring to the previous decision from which we have just quoted, we said that the proceeding before the board 'was ordered dismissed as moot for the reason that any decision of the board would then necessarily come so late that the company would lose the right of appeal to the commissioner secured to it by § 73, which it must exercise not later than December 1, 1952.' These statements are equally applicable to the year 1952.

We note the assessors' argument in their brief now before us to the effect that it is 'senseless' to allow the assessors to appeal to the Appellate Tax Board from the commissioner's certification and then to allow the taxpaying company, after decision by the board, to apply for an abatement to the same commissioner, and that therefore the right of the taxpaying company to an abatement under section 73 must exist only where the assessors have not appealed to the Appellate Tax Board, and that where the assessors have appealed the remedy of the taxpaying company is by application to the assessors for abatement followed by appeal to the Appellate Tax Board under c. 59, § 59, as most recently amended by St.1946, c. 199, § 1, and c. 59, § 65, as appearing in St.1945, c. 621, § 6. But this contention runs directly contrary to the wording of section 39 by which it is expressly provided in substance that the valuations by the Appellate Tax Board shall be subject to abatement by the commissioner as provided in section 73. Sections 39 and 73 are companion sections...