89 So. 247 | La. | 1921
Plaintiff sued to annul or-in the alternative to reduce an assessment on its corporate franchise. The district court gave judgment reducing the assessment of $185,200 to- $180,200. The 'defendants, board
The board of state affairs assessed the tangible property of the corporation at $228,7 666, the correctness or fairness of which is not disputed. In computing the value of the franchise, the board divided it into two franchises, calling them, for convenience, the primary and the secondary franchise. The so-called primary franchise was declared to be the privilege enjoyed by the corporation of occupying the streets with its water mains, pipes, etc., and of conducting the business of supplying water to the inhabitants of the city. The so-called secondary franchise was declared to be the value resulting from the earnings of the business. The so-called primary franchise was assessed, arbitrarily, at $5,000. The value of the so-called secondary franchise was determined by what the board deemed to be the net earnings rule. But the board refused to deduct from the annual earnings ,of the corporation the average annual interest paid on the bonded debt of the corporation. The average annual earnings, as shown by the statement rendered for the last five years, including the average annual interest, $8,-485, paid on the bonded indebtedness, amounted to $29,105. The board allowed 8 per cent, as a fair and reasonable return on the value •of the tangible property; that is, 8 per cent. of $22S,666, or $1S,293, which, deducted from the average annual earnings, $29,105, left, as the average annual net earnings of the franchise, $10,812, which, capitalized at 6 per cent, gave, as the value of the so-called secondary franchise, $180,200, to which the board added the value of the so-called primary franchise, $5,000, and thus assessed the so-called “total franchise” at $185,200.
The district court sustained plaintiff’s objection to the assessment of the so-called primary franchise, thus reducing the assessment to $180,200.
Deducting $18,293, being 8 per cent, of the $228,666 valuation of the tangible property, from the $29,105, average annual net earnings of the corporation, leaves $10,812 as the average annual net earnings of the franchise, which, capitalized at 8 per cent., gives $135,150 as the value of the franchise. Our conclusion, therefore, is that the assessment of the franehisé should be reduced to $135,150.
“shall receive ten per cent, commission on the amount of taxes involved when the assessment is sustained or not reduced more than 25 per cent, of the reduction claimed, and the taxes collected, which shall be assessed as a penalty against the taxpayer, and he [meaning the attorney for the tax collector] shall receive five per cent, of the taxes involved and collected when the assessment- is not sustained, to be paid over by the tax collector when such taxes and penalties are collected.”
Our understanding of this is that the attorney’s fee shall be 10 per cent, on the amount of taxes contested and collected if the assessment made by the board is sustained or is not reduced more than 25 percent. of the reduction claimed, and that the attorney’s fee shall be 5 per cent, on the amount of taxes contested and collected if the assessment be reduced more than 25 per cent., but not to the full extent, of the reduction claimed. The reduction claimed in this case was the entire assessment of $185,-200. The reduction which we shall allow is $50,050, which is more than 25 per cent, of the reduction claimed. Plaintiff should therefore be condemned to pay 5 per cent, as the attorney’s fee on the taxes involved and to be collected upon the assessment of $135,150.
The judgment -appealed from is amended by reducing the assessment of plaintiff’s franchise from $180,200 to $135,150, and by condemning plaintiff to pay, as a penalty, 5 per cent, on the taxes to be collected on the assessment of $135,150, as the fee of the attorney for the tax collector. As thus amended, the judgment is affirmed.
On Motion to Correct Decree.
Within the time allowed for an application for rehearing, the appellants and appellee in this case filed a joint petition, praying that the decree should be amended in so far as it condemns the plaintiff, taxpayer, to pay the 5 per cent, on the taxes to be collected on the assessment of $135,150, being the fee of the attorney for the tax collector. Their interpretation of the statute is. that, when the assessment is reduced more than 25 per cent., but not to the full extent, of the reduction claimed by the tax debtor, the fee of the attorney for the' tax collector, being 5 per cent, of the
The decree heretofore rendered is now amended so as to require the tax collector to pay over to his attorney the fee of 5 per cent, of the taxes collected upon the assessment of $135,150 out of the taxes so collected, and without imposing the fee as a penalty upon the tax debtor.
Ante, p. 383.
Ante, p. 383.