Meserve v. Folsom
| Decision Date | 08 November 1890 |
| Parties | WARREN C. MESERVE v. JONAS FOLSOM ET AL |
| Court | Vermont Supreme Court |
GENERAL TERM, OCTOBER, 1889.
Judgment affirmed.
Alex. Dunnett and E. May, for the plaintiff.
The listers of Wheelock, after making up the plaintiff's list, notified him in writing that "agreeable to an act revising, consolidating and amending the laws relating to the grand list and in accordance with section 17 of said act," they had assessed him in a stated amount for money on hand and debts due, and agreeably to said act had doubled the same, etc.
By this notice the plaintiff could not be misled concerning the proceedings of the listers. The public law of the State is referred to as the basis of their procedure.
Section 17, which sets forth the method by which the list of persons not returning an inventory is made up, is in express terms referred to. The word "assessed" used in the notice is not to be construed in a technical sense, but is to have the meaning that "plain people give it in dealing with questions touching the making of a grand list."
The entire system of taxation, so far as it devolves upon town officers, is to be looked upon by courts with a practical eye. It is to be remembered that, as a general rule, men not learned in the law nor skilled in dialectics are to have the administration of the law and so it is presumable that the Legislature, in prescribing methods and formalities which are to be observed, has couched them in language which is to be understood in its popular sense by the people at large.
It is true that, technically speaking, the listers could not "assess" the plaintiff and then double the assessment.
But in this notice they informed him how they had assessed him and referred to the law, which he was bound to know, to show how they had finally made up his list. The notice prescribed by the statute must be formulated in such a manner as will apprise the taxpayer reasonably of the action taken, to the end that he may seek relief by appeal, if he desires.
The notice in this case fully complies with this rule, and could not mislead the taxpayer unless he employed some skilled attorney to misread it for him.
The evidence that the plaintiff paid no taxes in 1880 and 1881 was properly admitted. The plaintiff complains that this evidence created a prejudice against him, indicating that he was a tax dodger. But that prejudice is one that his own conduct inspired, if it was created at all. The evidence drawn out of the plaintiff in cross-examination indicated that he had led a roving life so far as his domicile for taxation purposes was concerned.
The defendants claimed that the plaintiff resided in Wheelock in 1883. The plaintiff claimed that he did not. As tending to show that he did not, he claimed that he resided either in Sutton or in Lyndon. It was the duty of the plaintiff to have a taxable residence somewhere. Though it is true that a tax assessment is a proceeding in invitum and the law which operates to take from a citizen his property for public purposes is to be strictly construed nevertheless the taxpayer is under a duty in view of the protection afforded him by the law, to contribute his just proportion to support the government under which he lives and the question of his liability to taxation in a given locality is to be tried in the light of this fact. Hurlbut v. Green, 42 Vt. 316.
As evidence that he did not reside in Sutton in 1882 it was proper to show, among other things, that he paid no taxes there in 1882, the payment of taxes being one of the indicia of residence. So, too, evidence that he paid no taxes anywhere in 1881 is evidence, inasmuch as the case showed that he had been in Caledonia county since 1874, and thus that he should have been taxed in that county. This evidence shed some light upon the character of his domicile in Caledonia county just before his claimed residence in Sutton in 1882, and strengthened the notion that his residence had been ambulatory all along to 1883. Whatever unfavorable inferences these facts gave rise to were the outgrowth of the plaintiff's neglect of his public duty.
Residence for purposes of taxation is made up of actual domicile coupled with a voluntary and concurring intent. The intent to reside, in many cases, is decisive. It is equally true that the intent to reside but in such a manner as to avoid taxation will not be controlling if the actual domicile is established by clear evidence. To shed light upon the true nature of this intent, in the concrete case, it is competent to show other domiciles, near the time and having similar features and disclosing a characterizing intent. The plaintiff had resided in Caledonia county, somewhere, during the three years prior to 1883. He could not satisfy his own mind, even, whether in 1883 his residence was in Sutton or in Lyndon, although he left Topsham in 1874 and never afterwards kept house outside Caledonia county. We are given no light as to his whereabouts down to 1882, except that in 1880 and 1881 it was...
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