Schley v. Montgomery County Com'rs

• Decision Date: 25 June 1907
• Citation: 67 A. 250,106 Md. 407
• Parties: SCHLEY, State Tax Com'r, v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY COM'RS.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

67 A. 250

106 Md. 407

SCHLEY, State Tax Com'r, v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY COM'RS.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 25, 1907

Appeal from Circuit Court, Anne Arundel County, in Equity; James Revell, Judge.

Action by the county commissioners of Montgomery county against Buchanan Schley, state tax commissioner. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Briscoe J., dissenting.

Argued before BRISCOE, BOYD, PEARCE, SCHMUCKER, BURKE, and ROGERS JJ.

Wm. S Bryan, Jr., Atty. Gen., for appellant.

Blair Lee and George H. Lamar, for appellees.

SCHMUCKER J.

We have stated in the opinion filed in the case of Blair Lee v. the present appellant (No. 39 of the present docket) 67 A. 252, that that case and the present one were instituted at the same time in the same court and for a common purpose. We also there stated that the purpose of both suits was to have the appellant, as tax commissioner, restrained from making his assessment for the year 1907 of the shares of stock of the two national banks there mentioned and the assets of a fire insurance company, in the manner proposed by him, and to have him required to make the assessments in the manner set forth as correct. The method of making the assessment about to be pursued by him is alleged in the bills of complaint to be erroneous and unlawful both in the plan to be adopted by him of ascertaining the gross value of the shares of capital stock of the two banks, and also of making deductions from that value in order to arrive at the net final value of the shares to form their taxable basis. We have already, in Blair Lee's case, fully disposed of the questions relating to the deductions which the commissioner proposes to make for real estate and investments of a certain character in arriving at the net or final value of the shares of the banks and the assets of the insurance company. Our consideration will now be given to the plan by which he intends to ascertain the gross value of the shares of the banks from which to deduct the value of the real estate and investments.

The allegation of the bill in the present case, in that respect, which in so far as it consists of statement of facts is admitted by the demurrer, is as follows: "The defendant proposes, in assessing the shares of stock of each of said banks, to add the amount of the capital stock, surplus fund, and undivided profits, including the sinking, reserved, or contingent fund aforesaid, and from the sum thus obtained, or so-called book value, allow deductions of one-fourth of the amount so ascertained, also the assessed value of the real estate of said respective banks, and, further, the full amount of the par value of the stock debt of Baltimore City so held by said respective banks on January 1, 1907, as aforesaid, and to divide the sum remaining after the deductions aforesaid by the number of shares of capital stock issued of such respective banks, and the quotient, so ascertained, the defendant, as state tax commissioner, proposes and is about to certify as the basis for state, county, and municipal assessment against each share of the capital stock of said banks. *** That is to say, the defendant, in assessing the capital stock of said the Montgomery County National Bank, proposes to disregard the earning capacity of said shares of stock of more than 17 1/2 per cent. per annum and the market value thereof as demonstrated thereby, and by the aforesaid reported sales at $250 to $300 per share, and take the book value of $218,129.57, and arbitrarily and without authority of law deduct one-fourth of said book value, or $54,532.39, thus reducing the gross value per share to $163.59." The bill further alleges that after the tax commissioner has carried out his purpose of deducting from this gross value of the shares the value of the real estate and city stock held by the bank, the value of each share of stock of the bank will for purposes of taxation be reduced to $15.39, and thus there will in effect result an unlawful exemption, from taxation for county and municipal taxation in Montgomery county, of a large part of the value of the shares of said bank.

Two questions in reference to the state of facts thus alleged are...