People ex rel. Toman v. Chicago & N.W. Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 12 November 1941 |
| Docket Number | No. 26007.,26007. |
| Citation | 377 Ill. 547,37 N.E.2d 169 |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
| Parties | PEOPLE ex rel. TOMAN, County Collector, v. CHICAGO & N. W. RY. CO. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Proceeding by the People, on the relation of John Toman, County Collector, against the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company, to recover taxes for the year 1938, levied by the Villages of Melrose Park and River Forest. From a judgment of the county court sustaining defendant's objections, plaintiff appeals.
Reversed and remanded with directions.Appeal from Circuit Court, Cook County; Edmund K. Jarecki, judge.
Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., of Chicago (Marshall V. Kearney, Jacob Shamberg, Brendan Q. O'Brien, Elmer W. Arch, and Guy C. Guerine, all of Melrose Park, and Maurice G. Shanberg, of Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.
Robert N. Holt and Pomeroy Sinnock, both of Chicago, for appellee.
The county collector of Cook county appeals from a judgment of the county court sustaining the objections of the defendant, the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company, to certain taxes for the year 1938 levied by the villages of Melrose Park and River Forest.
The taxes of Melrose Park were extended on a certified copy of the levy ordinance filed in the office of the county clerk. By this ordinance the total levy for corporate purposes amounted to $106,970. The total assessed value of all the taxable property within the village was $4,499,896. In order to raise the full amount levied it would have been necessary to extend the taxes at a rate of 2.3771 on each $100 assessed valuation. The rate actually extended was .6666. The extension at this rate produced in taxes only twenty-eight per cent of the amount levied.
The sole objection is that the levy was made in a grossly illegal and fraudulent amount, thereby rendering it impossible for the taxpayer to determine the amounts within legal limits to be levied and appropriated for each purpose, and, on the other hand, making it possible for the village board to defeat objects which the taxpayer feels should be taken care of and to divert the funds to other objects beyond their current needs. Defendant did not attack the itemization in the appropriation and levy ordinances, nor did it object to an excess of taxes extended at an excessive rate. Admittedly, the taxes were extended at a rate authorized by law. To sustain the ruling of the trial court upon its first objection, the contention is made that the levy and appropriation ordinances are so grossly excessive as to be constructively fraudulent. It is, accordingly, argued that this resulted in an appropriation and levy of taxes in a lump sum in violation of section 1 of article 8 of the Cities and Villages Act, Ill.Rev.Stat.1939, chap. 24, par. 123, p. 405, which requires the appropriation and levy ordinances to specify, in detail, the purposes for which the taxes are appropriated and levied.
It is insisted that the taxpayer has the right to require a levy ordinance from which he can determine the amount levied for each purpose for which the taxes are levied, without being compelled to make a mathematical computation in order to ascertain the amount levied for any purpose. Defendant further maintains that when the taxpayer examined the levy ordinance and found a total levy of $106,970, and ascertained that the county clerk only extended taxes in the amount of $29,994, he was required to make a computation to determine the amount levied under the ordinance for each purpose specified therein. This, it is claimed, violated the statute for the reason that it does not appear from the face of the ordinance the amount levied for each purpose, and is, in effect, a lump sum levy. The question raised by this objection is both new and novel. The theory advanced by defendant in support of this objection would be wholly impracticable in its application. It would be most difficult, if not impossible, for municipal officers to always appropriate and levy the exact amount of taxes which could be actually collected for each purpose for which taxes are levied. In fact, at the times the appropriation and levy ordinances are required by statute to be passed, the rate at which the taxes can be lawfully extended cannot be known. Municipal authorities have nothing to do with fixing the rate at which taxes are extended. They have no way of anticipating exactly what the rate may be. This rate must be thereafter fixed and determined by the county clerk, within certain limits imposed by law. The county clerk must determine the rate at which the taxes shall be extended by him by taking into consideration the levies filed in his office by all the various taxing bodies within his county. He must scale, or reduce, the levies certified so as to bring the rate within the limits fixed by law. Ill.Rev.Stat.1937, chap. 120, pars. 329, 330. The determination, annually, of the amounts necessary to be raised by taxation for corporate purposes is committed to the municipal authorities. Their judgment as to such amounts is final. They are neither authorized, nor required, to fix the amount of taxes to be extended. What the law requires them to do is to ascertain the amounts necessary for their corporate purposes for the current year. Ill.Rev.Stat.1939, chap. 24, par. 123, p. 405. They merely fix the amounts which, in their judgment, will be needed to defray the corporate expenses of the municipality for the tax year. The amount of taxes which will be extended must be determined by the county clerk, in accordance with the statute, after the levies are made. The protection of the taxpayer is found in the statute which requires the county clerk to extend the taxes at not to exceed the lawful rate, which he must determine regardless of the amount of the levy. If the taxes are extended at an excessive rate, the taxpayer may object to the excess taxes produced by the excessive rate. He is fully protected from the payment of taxes extended in excess of the lawful rate.
It is also argued that to permit a municipality to make a grossly excessive levy in amounts much greater than can be lawfully extended will result in fraudulent use of the taxes when collected. Illustrative of the fraudulent use of one fund, and the depletion of others, defendant suggests that a concrete example may be found in the payment of anticipation warrants issued against the taxes levied; that anticipation warrants may be lawfully issued up to seventy-five per cent of the taxes levied; that when the taxes here involved were extended in an amount of only twenty-eight per cent of the amount levied, the amount collected may have been much less than the anticipation warrants lawfully issued, and that this would result in a fraud on purchasers of anticipation warrants. This argument is not persuasive. It is well settied that an anticipation warrant is simply an assignment of tax money, if and when collected. It creates no debt or obligation on the municipality whatever, except to apply the taxes, when collected, to the payment of the warrant in so far as the amount collected may extend. Dimond v. Com'r of Highways, 366 Ill. 503, 9 N.E.2d 197. The purchaser of an anticipation warrant must rely solely upon the ability and fidelity of the revenue officials in the collection and payment of the money mentioned in the warrants. Berman v. Board of Education, 360 Ill. 535, 196 N.E. 464, 99 A.L.R. 1029.
It is further argued that where the municipality actually receives less than the total amount of taxes levied there is nothing to prevent it from applying to any purposespecified in the levy ordinance a greater amount than the just proportion of taxes actually collected for the particular purpose, and still keep within the amount appropriated and levied for such purpose; that this would result in an unlawful approtionment and use of taxes received as between different purposes specified in the levy. The foregoing argument is equally unsound. It presupposes that the village officers will not failthfully discharge their duties. In this presumption we cannot indulge. The rule that the courts cannot assume that public officials will not discharge their duties according to law is too well settled to require the citation of authorities.
The objection that the levy for corporate purposes for the village of Melrose Park was so grossly excessive it contained no itemization of the purposes for which the taxes were levied or specification of the amounts levied for each purpose is not well founded. It should have been overruled.
Defendant's objection to the village taxes of the village of River Forest is that although both the appropriation and levy ordinances for 1938 set forth in detail all the purposes, in making the levy, deductions are made from the appropriations for six departments of sums representing the receipts from sources other than taxation, leaving in those departments a lesser amount for which a levy is made. The adpartments and the respecive amounts appropriated and levied, to which objection is made, are as follows:
+-----------------------------------------------+
¦ ¦Amount ¦Amount ¦
+-------------------------+-------------+-------¦
¦ ¦Appropriated.¦Levied.¦
+-------------------------+-------------+-------¦
¦General Administration ¦ ¦ ¦
+-------------------------+-------------+-------¦
¦Department ¦$18,030 ¦$24,030¦
+-------------------------+-------------+-------¦
¦Public Welfare Department¦19,300 ¦12,300 ¦
+-------------------------+-------------+-------¦
¦Police Department ¦42,100 ¦31,100 ¦
+-------------------------+-------------+-------¦
¦Fire Department ¦13,730 ¦11,230 ¦
+-------------------------+-------------+-------¦
¦Health Department ¦1,550 ¦1,050 ¦
+-------------------------+-------------+-------¦
¦Legal Department ¦2,600...To continue reading
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