Coventry Co. v. Assessors of Taxes of the Town of Coventry

• Decision Date: 02 June 1888
• Parties: COVENTRY CO. v. ASSESSORS OF TAXES OF THE TOWN OF COVENTRY.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

14 A. 877

16 R.I. 240

COVENTRY CO.

v. ASSESSORS OF TAXES OF THE TOWN OF COVENTRY.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 2, 1888.

Petition under Pub. St. E. I. c. 43, §§ 15, 16, for the return of a tax assessed and collected.

Rathbone Gardiner, for petitioner. Dexter B. Potter, for respondents.

STINESS, J. The petitioner, a manufacturing corporation possessed of a considerable amount of personal property, made return to the assessors of taxes of Coventry as follows: "No ratable personal estate over and above the actual indebtedness of the company." To this petition, which asks judgment for the amount assessed and paid on personal estate, as overtaxation, the respondents reply that the return made as above does not comply with the requirement of the statute. Pub. St. R. I. c. 43, § 6, provides that, before assessing a tax, the assessors shall give a notice requiring "every person or body corporate to bring in to the assessors a true and exact account of all his ratable estate, describing and specifying the value of every parcel of his real and personal estate." Section 7 is as follows: "Every person bringing in any such account shall make oath before some one of the assessors' that the account by him exhibited contains, to the best of his knowledge and belief, a true and full account and valuation of all his ratable estate; and whoever neglects or refuses to bring in such account, if overtaxed shall have no remedy therefor." The petitioner, however, relies on the last proviso contained in Pub. St. R. I. c. 42, § 10, viz.: "Provided, that no person shall be liable to taxation on personal property, except upon the surplus of the ratable, personal estate owned by him over and above his indebtedness." The argument is that the statute requires an account only of ratable estate, and therefore, if the indebtedness equals or exceeds the value of the personal property, there is no liability to taxation for personal estate, and hence there is no ratable, because there is no taxable, personal estate for which to render an account. The petitioner's claim rests upon the assumption that the word "ratable," in the statute requiring an account, is equivalent to the word "taxable." We do not think the claim is well founded. The word "rate" is used with reference both to a percentage or proportion of taxation and to a valuation of property, (State v. Utter, 34 N. J. Law, 489;) and, undoubtedly, the words "ratable estate" often denote that estate which is to bear its...