Powell v. McKee
| Decision Date | 03 November 1902 |
| Citation | 81 Miss. 229,32 So. 919 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | WILLIAM H. POWELL v. SAMUEL T. McKEE, TAX COLLECTOR |
FROM the chancery court of Madison county. HON. HENRY C. CONN Chancellor.
Powell appellant, was complainant in the court below; McKee, tax collector, appellee, was defendant there.
A number of persons loaned money in Madison county Mississippi, and, forgetting that "the best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft a gle," took notes payable to "bearer," and deeds of trust to secure same which in no way identified the owners of the notes, naming Powell, appellant, as trustee. In 1901, the assessor of the county assessed the notes for taxes as "unknown solvent credits to unknown owner." In March, 1902, appellee, collector, assuming that the said assessment made by the assessor was void for uncertainty of description, and acting under provision of § 3804, code 1892, assessed these same debts by proper description, to "unknown owner." The taxes on the several debts or solvent credits were not paid, and appellee advertised them for sale as delinquent for taxes under the provisions of § 3826 of the code of 1892. Thereupon appellant Powell, trustee, filed his bill in this case, to enjoin the sale, and alleged that the assessments made both by the assessor and the sheriff and tax collector were null and void because made to an unknown owner; that the statute required personal property to be assessed to a person by name; that the tax collector could assess only property that had escaped assessment by the assessor, and in this case the assessor had attempted to assess the very same property in August, 1901; and the bill further claimed that the law authorizing the tax collector in any case to assess, was unconstitutional and void. A demurrer was sustained to this bill, and the bill dismissed. From that decree, complainant appealed to the supreme court.
Affirmed.
W. H. Powell, in propria persona, and H B. Graves, for appellant.
Solvent credits and money loaned cannot be assessed to unknown owners, but land can be, by virtue of the statute. The common law required land and personalty to be assessed to the true owner by name, and this rule is abrogated by the statute as to land only. Code 1892, § 3746.
Personalty and choses in action must be assessed to a person by name. Code 1892, §§ 3747, 3749, 3751, 3754, 3755, 3757, 3761, 3763, 3767, 3768, 3769, 3770, 3783, 3801, 3804, 3807, 3808, 3826, 3828, 3832, 3836, 3851.
An assessment roll must be had which must show the property taxes and the person who owns. 25 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law (1st ed.), pp. 210, 211 and notes.
The person taxed must be designated on the roll with certainty. Ib., 212, 213, 214 and 216 and notes.
When assessed to unknown owner, it is void unless allowed by statute. Ib., 213.
The legislature has no power to displace the constitutional assessor by another person. State v. Tonella, 70 Miss. 710.
J. B. Chrisman, for appellee.
Two questions are raised: (a) Can solvent credits be assessed when the owner is unknown? (b) Can a trustee in an ordinary deed of trust, with only a contingent interest in the property about to be sold for taxes, sustain an injunction against the tax collector to prevent the collection of the tax because of some supposed irregularity in the assessment?
Our statutes certainly authorize and require all solvent credits believed to be collectible, etc., to be assessed, although the owner may be unknown.
If the decree dissolving the injunction cannot be affirmed, then indeed have money-lending tax dodgers found a city of refuge, and the man with only "forty acres and a mule" must bear the burden of government.
The complainant, as trustee, has no such interest in the debts as to give him a standing to maintain this suit, unless he be treated as their owner; and, if he be their owner, his hands are not clean and he should be denied relief in a court of conscience. As trustee, indeed, he ought to have given in the debts for taxation, and is in default for not having done so. He cannot set up his own default as the basis of his present complaint.
This court ought not, and will not, sanction a dodge. The way of the tax dodger should be made hard.
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State ex rel. Forman v. Wheatley
... ... collector to make additional assessments was expressly upheld ... in Tunica County v. Tate, 78 Miss. 294, 29 ... So. 74, and Powell v. McKee, 81 Miss. 229, ... 32 So. 919. It is conceded that there must be an assessment ... The discharge of this duty in the first instance is ... ...
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Nickey v. State ex rel. Attorney-General
...until the George County Bridge Co. case came up. See Illinois Central R. R. Co. v. Adams, 78 Miss. 895, 29 So. 996; Powell v. McKee, 81 Miss. 229, 32 So. 919; & Pine Land Co. v. Adams, 93 Miss. 340, 48 So. 190; Carrier & Co. v. Quitman Co., 156 Miss. 396, 124 So. 437, 125 So. 416, 66 A. L. ......
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Nickey v. State
...final. All questions were presented, and the taxpayers were in court prior to the assessment becoming final. The case of Powell v. McKee, 81 Miss. 229, 32 So. 919, is not point, because it was not a suit to recover a tax, but an injunction to restrain the collection of the tax by the taxing......