People ex rel. Rea v. Wabash Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 15 February 1921 |
| Docket Number | No. 13570.,13570. |
| Parties | PEOPLE ex rel. REA, County Collector, v. WABASH RY. CO. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Proceeding by the People, on the relation of John W. Rea, County Collector, for sale of property for nonpayment of taxes, opposed by the Wabash Railway Company, owner. Objections overruled, and the owner appeals.
Reversed and remanded.
Stone, j., dissenting.
Appeal from Montgomery County Court; J. H. Ragsdale, Judge.
D. R. Kinder, of Litchfield (N. S. Brown and L. H. Strasser, both of St. Louis, Mo., of counsel), for appellant.
J. Earl Major, State's Atty., of Hillsboro (Lane, Dryer & Brown, of Hillsboro, and Paul McWilliams, of Litchfield, of counsel), for appellee.
The county court of Montgomery county overruled certain objections of appellant to the taxes levied against its line of railway extending through certain parts of Montgomery county. Judgment was entered for the taxes, and a sale was ordered of appellant's property. To reverse that judgment this appeal has been taken.
Appellant's first objection relates to an item of $24.81 on account of the town tax of South Litchfield, and it is objected that such amount is invalid because the county clerk, in extending the taxes for town purposes, extended an excessive amount on account of loss and cost of collection. It appears from the record that the clerk extended a tax at the rate of 20 cents on the $100 valuation of the township property, which resulted in producing a tax of $2,919.58; that this tax was levied to meet the appropriation for the year's expenses, amounting to $2,500, and the cost of collection, $100.97, leaving a balance over these items of $318.61. Appellant on the hearing sought to show by the county clerk how he arrived at the rate of taxation, but upon objections to questions of appellant the court held that it was immaterial how the clerk arrived at the rate and it sustained the objections.
This court has frequently held that the question of what is a proper rate of tax to produce the amount required is a matter which must rest largely within the discretion of the official extending the tax, as it is by no means certain what the deficiencies in collection will amount to. Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railroad Co. v. People, 200 Ill. 541, 66 N. E. 148;People v. Sandberg Co., 282 Ill. 245,118 N. E. 490;People v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co., 290 Ill. 327, 125 N. E. 310. It was held in the lastnamed case that the burden of proving that the items for loss and cost of collection are excessive or illegal rests upon the party objecting to the tax. In People v. Sandberg Co., 277 Ill. 567, 115 N. E. 741, it was stated that the courts will not interfere with the exercise of business judgment on the part of public authorities except to prevent an abuse of discretion. These being the rules applicable to a hearing of this character, it becomes at once obvious that unless the county clerk could be examined as to how he arrived at the amount included for loss and cost of collection the court would be unable to determine whether or not he had abused the discretion given him. It was error to refuse to permit the county clerk to answer interrogatories as to how he arrived at the rate of taxation as applied to loss and cost of collection. For this reason there must be a rehearing regarding this item of tax of the town of South Litchfield objected to by appellant.
Another objection of appellant is to the village tax of the village of Harvel. The only question involved concerning this tax is whether or not the annual appropriation ordinance was passed during the first quarter of the fiscal year, as required by the statute. Appellant contends that the recitation in the preamble of the levy ordinance that the fiscal year commenced June 1 is sufficient proof of that fact, and that by reason of that recital the beginning of the fiscal year has been changed from the time fixed by statute, and that as the appropriation ordinance was passed May 28, 1919, the law requiring the passage of the appropriation ordinance during the first quarter of the fiscal year was not complied with. Section 1 of article 7 of the Cities and Villages Act (Hurd's Rev. St. 1919, c. 24, § 88)...
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