State v. Phillips

• Decision Date: 02 February 1891
• Citation: 102 Mo. 664,15 S.W. 319
• Parties: STATE ex rel. NEILL v. PHILLIPS.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

15 S.W. 319

102 Mo. 664

STATE ex rel. NEILL v. PHILLIPS.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

February 2, 1891.

COLLECTION OF TAXES — ASSESSOR'S BOOKS.

1. In a suit for delinquent taxes, the collector having, in making out the tax-bill filed with the petition, omitted to state the respective funds to which each tax belonged, he may be permitted to supply the omission from the original tax-book in his possession.

2. The assessor's book not having been authenticated by his affidavit, the court has no power, in a suit for delinquent taxes, to authorize the ex-assessor to make and subscribe in the books such an affidavit as should originally have been made.

Appeal from circuit court, New Madrid county; H. C. O'BRYAN, Judge.

J. J. Russell, for appellant. Silver & Brown and H. C. Riley, for respondent.

BRACE. J.

This is an action upon a tax-bill for delinquent taxes for the years 1881 and 1882, brought by the collector of New Madrid county in 1887. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.

1. The only evidence introduced was the tax-bill certified by the collector, and filed with the petition. It appears from the bill of exceptions that when the tax-bill was offered it showed three columns of taxes due on each tract of land, and the years for which they were due, but the columns were not so headed as to indicate the fund to which such taxes severally belonged, the word "tax" alone appearing at the head of each column. The court, over the objections of the defendant, permitted plaintiff to write the word "state" before the word "tax" at the head of the first column, the word "county" before the word "tax" at the head of the second column, and the word "school" before the word "tax" at the head of the third column. It then appeared by the tax-bill to which fund the respective amount of taxes claimed to be due belonged, as the law required. The permission of the court given to thus amend the tax-bill is assigned for error. The tax-bill which the collector is required to file with the petition by section 6837, Rev. St. 1879, in a suit for delinquent taxes, and which, when certified by him, is made by said section prima facie evidence that the amount claimed is just and correct, it must substantially conform to so much of the back tax book prepared, completed, and receipted for by him under the provisions of section 6834, Id., as relates to the lands which he seeks to charge with back taxes in the suit. This book shows primarily the land upon which back taxes are owing, the years for which it is due, and the fund to which it belongs; and if, in making out the tax-bill, the collector omitted to state the respective funds to which each tax belonged, this book furnished a reliable record by which it might be amended, and by which, when amended, it could be readily determined whether the tax-bill conformed to the truth of the facts as they appeared in said tax-book, which fact was not questioned. That formal defects may be corrected and clerical omissions supplied in tax-bills by the officer whose duty it is to prepare them, from the original tax-books in his possession, there can be no question; and no error was committed in...