Laclede Land & Improvement Company v. State Tax Commission

• Decision Date: 28 August 1922
• Citation: 243 S.W. 887,295 Mo. 298
• Parties: LACLEDE LAND & IMPROVEMENT COMPANY, Relator, v. STATE TAX COMMISSION
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

243 S.W. 887

295 Mo. 298

LACLEDE LAND & IMPROVEMENT COMPANY, Relator, v. STATE TAX COMMISSION

Supreme Court of Missouri

August 28, 1922

Peremptory writ denied.

Daniel & Daniel for relator.

(1) The chief purpose for which the State Tax Commission was created was to remedy the wrong of great inequality in the burden of taxation caused by inefficient enforcement of the revenue laws of the State concerning the assessment of property. R S. 1919, secs. 12828, 12829, 12832, 12834, 12847 and 12848. (2) When the real estate of an individual or a corporation is assessed at more than the true value and other real estate in the same county is assessed at much less than its true value it is the duty of the Tax Commission to remove the discrimination, when the fact of such discrimination is made known to it; and it has full power to do so. R. S. 1919, sec 12847, sub-divisions 3, 6, 7 and 8. (3) The commission is charged with the duty of correcting assessments not made according to law after said assessments have been passed upon by the several Boards of Equalization. R. S. 1919, sec. 12848. (4) The sole function of the State Board of Equalization with the assessment of real estate is to equalize the value thereof among the several counties of the State, and no action of said board can deprive the State Tax Commission of the power or relieve it of the duty of equalizing individual assessments of real estate within a county when required so to do by a taxpayer of the county in the manner provided by statute. Mo. Constitution, art. 10, sec. 18; R. S. 1919, sec. 12854. (5) The duties imposed upon the State Tax Commission by Sections 12847 and 12848 are mandatory. (6) The word "many" at the end of line ten of Sec. 12848, R. S. 1919, must be construed as meaning "shall" or "must," the rule of construction in cases of this sort being that may is to be held as meaning shall whenever the statute requiring construction relates to a power conferred on public officers, concerning the public interest and the rights of third persons, who have a claim de jure that the power shall be exercised in this manner for the sake of justice and the public good. Steines v. Franklin County, 48 Mo. 177; Leavenworth Railroad Co. v. County Court of Platte County, 42 Mo. 174; State ex rel. v. Laughlin, 73 Mo. 449; Deming v. Engineering & Construction Co., 154 Mo.App. 544; Lapsley v. Merchants Bank, 105 Mo.App. 101.

Jesse W. Barrett, Attorney-General, and Merrill E. Otis, Assistant Attorney-General, for respondent.

(1) The law creating the State Tax Commission, Article IV of Chapter 119, nowhere requires the commission to give a hearing to a complaining taxpayer. The only hearing referred to is in Section 12848 of Article IV. The hearing therein provided for is entirely discretionary with the State Tax Commission and is not, therefore, one which can be compelled by mandamus. Sec. 12848, R. S. 1919. (2) The law defining the powers of the State Tax Commission does not authorize the commission to raise and lower individual assessments independently of nor after the final equalization of valuations among the counties by the State Board of Equalization. Secs. 12847, 12848, R. S. 1919. (3) If the law creating the State Tax Commission and defining its powers should be construed as giving to the commission the right to increase or decrease individual assessments within the counties, then such law is inconsistent with Sections 10 and 18 of Article X of the Constitution.

GRAVES, J. James T. Blair, C. J., dissents.

OPINION

In Banc.

Mandamus.

GRAVES J.

Original action in mandamus. Relator, a Missouri corporation, is the owner of some 41,000 acres of land in Reynolds County. This is what is called "cut-over land," which means land from which has been cut all the timber of value. It is averred that this land is not worth more than two dollars per acre; that the County Assessor wrongfully and fraudulently assessed it at $ 2.50 per acre; that the County Board of Equalization although fully apprised of the facts, raised the assessment to three dollars per acre; that the State Board of Equalization thereafter ordered and adjudged an increase of twenty per cent, which made the ultimate valuation $ 3.60 per acre; that such valuation was much above the actual value of such lands; that large portions of the lands in said county were assessed at less than their actual value; that on April 23, 1922, the relator presented its claims to the Missouri Tax Commission, and requested it to readjust the valuation of relator's property, in view of the fact that other properties were assessed at less than actual value, whilst the properties of relator were assessed in excess of actual value; that said Tax Commission declined to assume jurisdiction of such case, and the prayer is to require said Tax Commission to readjust the valuation on relator's property under the conditions stated. The relator further says that upon the filing of its petition with the Tax Commission it "was the duty of said State Tax Commission to grant to your petitioner a hearing and an opportunity to establish the facts herein and in said complaint averred, and upon such allegations being established by legal and competent evidence to the satisfaction of said Tax Commission to lower and reduce the assessment of the lands aforesaid to a sum not to exceed its true value, and to a sum not to exceed the proportion of its true value at which it found other lands in said county to be assessed after having increased the assessment of such as were materially below the average proportion of the true value at which such lands were assessed as required by Article IV of Chapter 119, Revised Statutes of 1919, etc."

The petition then avers that on May 3rd the said State Tax Commission refused to hear evidence upon the matter on the ground that it had no jurisdiction as stated hereinabove. The prayer is that this court compel such State Tax Commission to proceed to hear the evidence as to the irregularity of the assessment of lands in said county, and if the lands of relator have been inequitably assessed that proper relief be granted. In other words the petition for our writ proceeds upon the theory that the Missouri State Tax Commission is legally bound to adjust the inequalities in the individual assessments of the sundry individuals in the several counties in the State. Not only so but that this might be done after the State Equalization Board has met, and equalized the assessments as to the several counties of the State.

The return of the respondents is to the effect (1) that it was without power or right to do this, and (2) that if it did possess the right then the exercise thereof was purely discretionary, and therefore not a subject for mandamus. Further details are left to the opinion.

I. The State Tax Commission is a nondescript when it comes to the assessment of property. The power to assess property is fixed in named officers under the law, and unless the Tax Commission Act repeals that law, such commission cannot assess property. To rule that such Tax Commission Act (Art. IV, Chap. 119, R. S. 1919) repealed the law as to whom the duties were imposed as to the assessment of property would be preposterous. No agency of the State has considered that such commission has been given such power. The language of the act itself (save some loosely drawn sections, or parts of sections) indicates no such purpose. After the assessment the law provides that there shall be certain county agencies to fix and determine the wrongs committed by the assessor. To hold that these agencies were disturbed or superceded by the Tax Commission Act would likewise be preposterous.

The Tax Commission Act contemplates that such commission may, in a proper manner, see that these...