People ex rel. Auditor General v. Supervisors of Monroe County

• Decision Date: 04 April 1877
• Citation: 36 Mich. 70
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: The People on the relation of the Auditor General v. The Supervisors of Monroe County

36 Mich. 70

The People on the relation of the Auditor General v. The Supervisors of Monroe County

Supreme Court of Michigan

April 4, 1877

Heard January 3, 1877

Application for mandamus.

Mandamus denied.

A. J Smith, Attorney General, and Charles Upson, for relator.

J Ronan, I. R. Grosvenor, and E. Willetts, for respondents.

OPINION

Campbell, J.:

The auditor general applies for a mandamus to compel the county of Monroe to raise a state tax to refund to the state a balance struck against the county, which includes, among other things, a loss on state tax-lands sold for less than their cost, and also the amount of certain taxes the collection of which was stayed by injunction. These two principal items are contested, together with certain smaller sums of interest. It is claimed that the act of 1869, whereby provision was made for charging back to the county the losses on state tax-bids cannot be allowed to justify the charges in this case, and that the enjoined taxes were not lawfully charged back. Both of these questions involve an inquiry into the theory and practice of state taxation; and the relative positions of state and county to each other in their financial dealings.

With some trifling exceptions, all county liability to the state must arise from state taxes for state purposes. It is only because these taxes are collected through the same processes with the local charges that any mutual debts and credits can arise. The state laws prescribe the methods of assessment, and the extent and manner of levying all these charges, the practical work being mostly done by neither state nor county, but by township officers, who make the valuations and apportion to each tax-payer his share of the burdens which they are required to lay upon the property on the rolls. As the validity of all the taxes chiefly depends on the regularity of the action of these subordinate officers, it is usually the case that a regular assessment will sustain the state tax, and that an irregular one will defeat it. The counties being the only municipal bodies directly communicating with the state, the responsibility for regularity is chiefly laid upon them, and irregularly laid taxes may in general, if set aside, be charged back to the counties for re-assessment in some form. But where taxes have been regularly assessed and returned, the responsibility of the counties is fulfilled, and they are discharged from further duties. No county has any means of compelling redress against township officers whose action is regular in form,--whether honestly or dishonestly performed; and the reason for imposing any duty on the counties is not based on the idea that they are able to regulate matters, but upon somewhat arbitrary rules of convenience to the state.

As each tax roll directs specifically what taxes are to be collected of each tax-payer for state, county, and local purposes if all the persons charged were residents and possessed of tangible property, no great complications would be likely, and the moneys would be speedily collected and paid over at once where they belong. But our laws are framed on the theory that a considerable number of tax-payers will not pay their taxes to the township collecting officer, and that both township and county, as well as state taxes, will have to be enforced by other agencies.

Assuming that all the taxes on every roll are presumptively of equal validity, the rule adopted has been to allow the town treasurer to retain the whole amount due to his office out of his collections before requiring him to pay any money to the county treasurer, and in like manner to allow the county treasurer to retain enough to pay all county taxes before paying over any money to the state. So that where town and county taxes are thus satisfied the whole balance belonged to the state and is enforced for the benefit of the state, although nominally including some county and township taxes in lieu of the same amount of state taxes collected and retained by township and county.

If the business has been regularly done, the taxes returned uncollected and the moneys paid over to the state at the proper return day, will precisely balance the amount of state taxes laid against the county. If enough has not been collected to pay township and county taxes, then by the return the state becomes a debtor to the county for the deficiency, but the unpaid taxes all belong to the state. And in pursuance of this same theory, although returned taxes for state, county, and town purposes are all charged with a high and uniform rate of interest, in the nature of a penalty for delay, only ten per cent. of this is allowed to the county for so much of the aggregate as is necessary to make good the county deficiency which the state is to assume, and all the rest belongs to the state. The county is charged with the state tax and credited with all moneys paid by its treasurer and all taxes returned unpaid. It has no further concern with, and no control over any of the unpaid taxes on its own account; and if any of them are subsequently paid to the county treasurer, they belong to the state and must be so accounted for.

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