People ex rel. Stevenson v. Atchison, T.&S.F. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 17 December 1913
• Citation: 261 Ill. 33,103 N.E. 614
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. STEVENSON, County Collector, v. ATCHISON, T. & S. F. RY. CO.

261 Ill. 33

103 N.E. 614

PEOPLE ex rel. STEVENSON, County Collector,

v.ATCHISON, T. & S. F. RY. CO.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 17, 1913.

Appeal from Warren County Court; L. E. Murphy, Judge.

Proceeding by the People, on the relation of W. E. Stevenson, County Collector, against the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway Company, for delinquent taxes. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.Robert Dunlap and Lee F. English, both of Chicago, and Safford & Graham, of Monmouth, for appellant.

J. N. Thomas, State's Atty., of Monmouth (Hanley & Cox, of Monmouth, of counsel), for appellee.

CARTER, J.

This is an appeal by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway Company from a judgment rendered against it in the county court of Warren county for delinquent county taxes for the year 1912.

Appellant insists that the entire county tax was void. In support of this contention it introduced in evidence the report of the finance committee of the county board of that county to said board, which reads, in part, as follows: ‘The following is a true and complete statement of the receipts and expenditures of the fiscal year from September 1, 1911, to September 1, 1912, as shown by the accounts of the county treasurer in account with Warren county, as of record in the office of the county clerk: 1911-December, to balance, last report, September, $61,974.95.’ Then follows an itemized statement of the receipts and expenditures for the year in question closing with a recapitulation showing a balance in the treasury of $56,846.65, and concluding: ‘Of the county warrants and birth and death certificates issued to September 1, 1912, there remains not reported to the county clerk as paid and canceled and still floating the amount of $61.76.’ This report was accepted by the county board and ordered recorded. It was also shown by the evidence that the county board adopted a report of the finance committee stating that the county expenses for the ensuing year would aggregate $51,000, and directed the county clerk to extend the county tax in accordance with said report.

[1][2] Subsection 5 of section 26 of chapter 34 of the Revised Statutes provides, among other things, that the county board, at its September meeting, shall make out a ‘full and accurate statement of the receipts and expenditures of the preceding year, * * * together with an accurate statement of the finances of the county at the end of the fiscal year, including all debts and liabilities of every description, and the assets and other means to discharge the same,’ etc. Hurd's Stat. 1911, p. 627. It is insisted that the report of receipts and expenditures mentioned above was made by the county board in compliance with this provision of the statute, and that it shows that the county had on hand more than $56,000 above all indebtedness, and that therefore there was no necessity for collecting any taxes for county expenses for the ensuing year, as all the $51,000 estimated for such county expenses could be paid from the amount already on hand and still leave a balance of over $5,000 in the treasury. We are not prepared to hold, from anything in the record, that the balance shown to be on hand could be used for paying general county expenses. The statutes provide that various sums shall be paid into the county treasury which cannot be used for the county expenses, such as unclaimed money in partition suits (Hurd's Stat. 1911, p. 1731), compensation under the eminent domain statute (Id. p. 1102), and unclaimed balances in the hands of public administrators (Id. p. 18). There was no showing that this $61,974.95 balance from the last yearly report was not, in part, made up from some of those sources. It has long been the rule of this court that ‘any one objecting to the enforcement of a tax assumes the burden of showing its invalidity. The presumption is that the tax is just; that all officers who have had any official connection with it have properly discharged their duties in respect to it. These presumptions can only be overcome by clear and explicit testimony.’ Peoria, Decatur & Evansville Railway Co. v. People, 116 Ill. 401, 6 N. E. 497;People v. Hulin, 237 Ill. 122, 86 N. E. 666, and cases cited; 2 Cooley on Taxation (3d Ed.) 891. Even if we concede, for the sake of the argument, that the county board could not levy a tax for an ensuing year if it had...