74 N.J.L. 1 | N.J. | 1906
This writ brings up for review an assessment for taxes in the year 1905 made by the State Board of Assessors against certain property of the prosecutor, located in the city of Newark, and also the judgment, order and proceedings made thereon by the Board of Equalization of Taxes of New Jersey, on an appeal taken by the said prosecutor from that assessment.
As all the parties to the litigation are desirous of having the cause speedily determined, in order that a review of my decision may be had at the term of the Court of Errors and Appeals which opens next week, I shall merely state the conclusions which 1 have reached, without elaborating the reasons which have led me to them.
The first reason assigned by the prosecutor is directed at the tax itself, and the contention made is that the supplement of 1905 to the revision of the act for the taxation of railroad and canal property (Pamph. L. 1905, ch. 91) violates the constitution of the state, for the following reasons— first, because it is not a general, but a special law; second, because it does not provide for the taxation of property in the several taxing districts by a uniform rule. It is further argued that by reason of the fact that it sets out divers rules for the taxation of property in the same taxing district, it denies to the prosecutor the equal protection of the laws,
The validity of the original act for the taxation of railroad and canal property was attacked in the .ease of the Central Railroad Co. v. State Board of Assessors, 19 Vroom 146, upon the same .grounds which are relied upon by the prosecutor to defeat the supplement now under consideration, and was upheld by the Court of Errors and Appeals, the conclusion of the court being that the law violated neither of the constitutional provisions which have been adverted to. In mjr judgment, the supplement of 1905 has not so changed the original law as to make the decision referred to inapplicable to it. Following that decision, I therefore hold that the supplement does not infringe either of the constitutional provisions appealed to by the prosecutor.
The other 'grounds of attack are directed against the judgment rendered by the Board of Equalization of Taxes of New Jersey on the appeal of the prosecutor. The petition of appeal sets forth that the State Board of Assessors had valued and assessed property of the prosecutor, located in the city of Newark, and commonly designated as second-class railroad property, at an amount greater than its true value, and that the rest of the property located in that taxing district had been valued and assessed at less than its true value. The prosecutor, upon this representation of fact, prayed that it might be relieved from the unjust burden placed upon it by reducing the value of its property to its true value, and by increasing the valuation of the property in the rest of the taxing district to its true value. A hearing was had before the Board of Equalization of Taxes, in the presence of counsel for the prosecutor and of the attorney-general, representing the State Board of Assessors, and of Mr. MacLear, representing the taxing district of the city of Newark, and after a certain amount of testimony had been produced on the part of the prosecutor, and also on the part of the taxing district, the counsel for the prosecutor and the attorney-general entered into a stipulation for the purposes of the case: “That the following are the facts touching the appeal iif this matter:
The conclusion of the Board of Equalization of Taxes, however, that it had no power to make an equalization of assessments between the property of the complainant and the other property in the taxing district seems to me to be erroneous. The principal purpose of the act which creates this board is
But, although I reach this conclusion as to the power of the board to direct a reassessment of a whole taxing district, I nevertheless consider that the refusal of the Board of Equalization of Taxes to exercise this power under the facts submitted to it was proper. The stipulated fact that the taxable property in the city of Newark, other than that which belonged to the prosecutor, was assessed substantially below its true value, was not shown by evidence submitted to the board, so far as the return to this writ discloses, but rested solely upon the stipulation entered into by the attorney-general, on the one side, and counsel for the prosecutor, on the other, and to which the city of Newark was not a party. To justify the Board of Taxation in so radical an action as the reassessment of the whole of the property of a city like Newark, thereby imposing upon the municipality a vast amount of labor and
Eor these reasons, I conclude that the refusal of the prosecutor’s application and the dismissal of its appeal was proper.
The tax and judgment under review are affirmed.