Southern Pac. Ry. Co. v. State., 3418.

• Decision Date: 04 January 1930
• Docket Number: No. 3418.,3418.
• Citation: 34 N.M. 479,284 P. 117
• Parties: SOUTHERN PAC. RY. CO.v.STATE.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

34 N.M. 479

284 P. 117

SOUTHERN PAC. RY. CO.

v.STATE.

No. 3418.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Jan. 4, 1930.

Syllabus by the Court.

Statutes imposing taxes and providing means for the collection of the same should be construed strictly, in so far as they may operate to deprive the citizen of his property by summary proceedings or to impose penalties or forfeitures upon him; but otherwise tax laws ought to be construed with fairness, if not liberality, in order to carry out the intention of the Legislature and further the important public interests which such statutes subserve.

Section 233, c. 133, Laws 1921, construed and held that the power of the assessor or treasurer to list real estate, which has been omitted in the assessment of any year or number of years, is not limited to a period of five years as in the case of personal property.

Error to District Court, Lincoln County; Frenger, Judge.

Proceeding by the Southern Pacific Railway Company against the State. An adverse judgment was entered and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.

Section 233, c. 133, Laws 1921, construed and held that the power of the assessor or treasurer to list real estate, which has been omitted in the assessment of any year or number of years, is not limited to a period of five years as in the case of personal property.

E. R. Wright, of Santa Fé, and A. H. Hudspeth, of Carrizozo, for plaintiff in error.

J. Frank Curns and J. W. Chapman, both of Santa Fé, for defendant in error.

BICKLEY, C. J.

There is no dispute as to the facts, and but one legal question involved in this case.

Does section 233, c. 133, Laws 1921, require a county treasurer, who discovers that real estate has been omitted in the assessment of any year or number of years, to place said real estate upon the assessment roll for all the omitted years including those in excess of 5 years?

The material portion of said section is as follows: “If the assessor shall, at any time before the delivery of the assessment roll to the county treasurer, discover that any personal property has been omitted in the assessment of any year, or number of years, and is, at the time of the discovery of such omission, owned or possessed by the same person as was the owner or in possession thereof at the time of such omission, it shall be his duty to list the same as hereinbefore provided in this article, in cases where the owner of property has failed to make return thereof, and he shall place the said property and his valuation thereof for every year, but not more than five years, during which said property was omitted, upon the assessment roll for the year in which such property is discovered, before delivering the same to the treasurer; and in case such omission of property from the assessment roll has been discovered by the treasurer after the assessment roll has been delivered to him, it shall be his duty to put the same upon the assessment roll in his possession, entering it thereon under the head of Additional Assessments, and he shall extend the taxes thereon as the county assessor might have done if he had discovered such omission before delivering the assessment roll to the treasurer. And in case of the like omission of real estate from the assessment roll for one or more years, like proceedings shall be had without regard to whether the property is still owned by the same person who was the owner at the time of such omission.”

Concededly the question involves merely a construction of the statute.

[1] Plaintiff in error argues that laws imposing taxes are to be strictly construed and doubts resolved in favor of the taxpayer, and that therefore the language in the second sentence of the section relating to real estate, that “like proceedings shall be had” as apply to personal property, has the effect to make the 5-year limitation pertaining to personal property applicable also to real estate.

Black on Interpretation of Laws, § 145, states the two views of strict construction in favor of the taxpayer and liberal construction in favor of the public and then announces what we believe is the sound...