Southern Hotel Co. v. Cnty. Court of St. Louis Cnty.

• Decision Date: 31 January 1876
• Citation: 62 Mo. 134
• Parties: IN THE MATTER OF SOUTHERN HOTEL COMPANY AND ROBERT CAMPBELL, Respondents, v. COUNTY COURT OF ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

62 Mo. 134

IN THE MATTER OF SOUTHERN HOTEL COMPANY AND ROBERT CAMPBELL, Respondents,

v.COUNTY COURT OF ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

January Term, 1876.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court.

Thomas C. Reynolds, for Appellee.

The true construction of the Act of 1860 is, that it exempted the Southern Hotel property from taxes due and payable to the city and county of St. Louis, prior to December 1st, 1869. (R. C., 1855, p. 1329, §§ 18, 19, 20; p. 1334, § 49; p. 1342, § 23; p. 1345, § 41); Act of March 3d, 1857 (Sess. Acts, 1857, p. 674); Revenue Act, March 30, 1872; Gottschalk's Laws, p. 374; Sess. Acts, 1872, p. 92, § 48; Act of January 14, 1860, “for the benefit of the collector of St. Louis county” (Sess. Acts, 1860, p. 576, § 2).

To extend the exemption of taxes to those of 1870, would be to give the property exemption for eleven years, by a most forced construction of the mere administrative regulations for the valuation of the property for purposes of uniform taxation.

If the exemption from taxation commenced December 1st, 1859, the liability re-attached on December 1st, 1869.

The counsel for appellant confound assessment or valuation of property, with taxation. Even after such valuation it does not follow that any tax will be levied.

The cases cited for appellant (45 Mo., 130, and 34 Mo., 390), merely affirm what the statutes already express very clearly, that the lien or liability for the future taxes on land is imposed on it from the date of the commencement of the valuation assessment.

Hitchcock, Lubke & Player, for Respondent.

The Act does not say “taxes due and payable,” nor can these words “due and payable” be put into this Act at this time by construction. The language of the Act is, that the property shall be “exempt from taxation,” i. e., exempt from the imposition of any taxes of the kind mentioned, by the assessment thereof. In Blossom vs. Van Court (34 Mo., 390), and McLaren vs. Sheble (45 Mo., 130), it is determined that the imposition of the tax is the date of the assessment, i. e., the 1st Monday of September.

The date upon which the assessment is prescribed by statute to be begun, fixes the time of the assessment and lien, no matter when the assessment was in fact made. (McLaren vs. Sheble, supra; Blossom v. Van Court, supra.) Hence, when this tax for the fiscal year, called “1870,” was imposed, i. e., the 1st Monday of September, 1869, the period of ten years, fixed by the act of January, 1860, had not elapsed by three months, and the assessment was therefore illegal in that “the land was not [then] subject to taxation.”

The taxes of 1860 are still due and a charge upon the property for aught that appears in the agreement of facts and exhibit offered by appellee. The assessment is shown to have been made, and it is then shown that the collector failed to collect the “R. R., school and county taxes,” and marked them on the tax bill “exempt.”

NAPTON, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

The Legislature of Missouri by an act passed 4th January, 1860, for the benefit of the Lindell and Southern Hotel Companies, declares in the preamble of the act, that the erection of those hotels has ceased from the want of money, and that building is deemed a great public need and advantage to the city and county of St. Louis; and, therefore, for the purpose of inducing the investment of capital for their speedy completion, it is enacted, that the land described in the preamble and all improvements “shall be exempt from taxation by the city and couuty, for the period of ten years, from and after the first day of December, 1859.”

It is agreed that, prior to the 1st of December, 1859, taxes had been assessed against this property for the year 1860, but the returns in the tax books showed that no tax assessed in 1859 for 1860, had been paid, but that they were marked “exempted by this act of January 4th, 1860, from R. R., school and county taxes,” and it was admitted that no such taxes had been paid. The assessment of the property for these taxes, payable in 1860, was begun by the assessor in 1859, on the 1st day of October, and was concluded before the 1st of March, 1860. This assessment referred to property as owned on the preceding 1st day of October, and the land in question was on that day owned by the Southern Hotel Company. On the tax book for 1860, this property was duly returned for taxation, but, as before stated, on this return was endorsed, “exempt from rail, school and county tax.” And in fact, the tax was not paid.

It was admitted that in 1864, Robert Campbell bought this property, and is the present owner.

This application of Mr. Campbell, the owner, was to have the assessment upon the tax bill for county and city taxes for 1870 struck from the tax bill, the assessment having been made in September, 1869. The county court refused to allow this exemption, and the case was taken by appeal to the circuit court, where the claim to an exemption was allowed, and the tax for 1870 ordered to be erased, and the case is brought to this court by appeal.

Several questions have been argued in this court, which, on the view we take of the case, need not be decided; one of them is, that no appeal was allowable in this case from the county to the circuit court. And the point made was, that the act of January, 1860, was unconstitutional, and a third position taken by the counsel for the county was, that at all events the school taxes were not within the meaning of the exemption provided for in the act.

These questions have been elaborately argued but it will be obvious that they are entirely unimportant to either party on the hypothesis that the act of 4th of January, 1860, did not extend the exemption to the taxes for 1870, and, as we have reached that conclusion, the judgment of the county court should stand; and whether an appeal from it was admissible or not, or whether the legislature had power to make the exemption, or whether the school taxes were not exempted, are questions of no practical importance--since, in our opinion, the exemption, whether...