50 P. 1009 | Or. | 1897
delivered the opinion.
The purpose of this proceeding is to review the action of the state board of equalization, and to correct certain errors alleged to have been committed by it, to the injury of plaintiff, in equalizing the assessments throughout the state for the year 1896. The plaintiff was assessed in Multnomah County on ‘ ‘ merchandise and stock in trade, ’ ’ $5,000; “one horse,” $50,— total, $5,050. And it is
The return of the secretary of state to the writ has appended thereto á copy of the tabulated statement prepared by the state board of equalization, duly certified, showing that the board equalized real estate in two classes, viz. : Class 1, comprising “town and city lots ” and ‘ ‘ improvements on town and city lots ’ ’ ; and class 2, comprising “railroad lands,” “wagon-road lands,” “other nontillable lands,” “tillable lands,” “improvements on deeded and patented lands,’’ ‘ ‘railroad tracks,’’ “ telegraph and telephone lines” ; and personal property under the following heads, viz. : “ Horses and mules,” “cattle,” “sheep and goats,” “swine,” “merchandise and stock in trade,” “farm implements, wagons, carriages, etc.,” “ steamboats, machinery,.etc.,” “money,” “notes and accounts,” “shares of stock,” “household furniture, etc., ” “ railroad rolling stock, ’ ’ and ‘ ‘ improvements on lands not deeded or patented,” except as it respects Marion county, which was equalized under three heads only, viz.: “Livestock,” “railroadrolling stock,” and “personal property, except livestock and railroad rolling stock.” The board met December 1, 1896, and adjourned sine die on the 30th. Its proceedings show that after repeated efforts to obtain the assessment roll of Marion county, and after having secured, through a committee appointed for that purpose, a summary of such roll, it was, on December 26th, “moved by Win-gate, and seconded by Gibson, that the board begin the
At the outset it is claimed by the attorney-general that the application for the writ was not made within six months from the date of the determination complained of, but the record was not finally made up until December 30, 1896, and, the application having been made June 29, 1897, it was within the time.
Its prescribed manner of procedure is to appoint a secretary, whose duty it is to compile into tabulated statements for its use abstracts of the ‘ ‘ assessment rolls received” from the various counties, and, when it shall have equalized the different classes of property, the result shall be combined in one table, and the chairman and secretary shall certify to the secretary of state the rate per cent, to be added to or deducted from the assessed
But non constat that a listing and valuation by subdivided classifications is also void. The statute gives a form of assessment roll which indicates the separate listing and valuation of the two classes of property, but by the section which contains the form it is provided that such additional columns shall be added as may be deemed necessary, varying the same as circumstances may require : Hill’s Ann. Laws, § 2776. Under this statute, it is quite probable that whenever it is deemed necessary to a more convenient and accurate assessment of real property that the lands and the improvements thereon be valued separately, and extended in separate and distinct columns, the proper officer would have authority to so formulate the rolls, and the assessors would be war
We cannot think that such an act of the assessors would render the assessment absolutely void. It may be — and this we do not decide — that the rolls have been unnecessarily incumbered by carrying into them too much of the minutiae’of ascertaining the condition, ownership and values of this class of property; but it may be treated as a surplusage that does not void the assessment thereof. The assessment is there, as is also the valuation ; and it needs but an addition of the separate valuations to the ascertainment of the aggregate, and all has been accomplished necessary to a valid assessment. No injury or harm would come to the taxpayer by the method pursued, and it is clear that he could not escape the payment of his tax upon that ground. Analogous cases seem to sustain this principle. In Wall v. Trumbull, 16 Mich. 228, it appears that the statute required that a certain bounty tax should be cast in the same column with other township taxes; but, as a matter of
Torrey v. Inhabitants of Millbury, 21 Pick. 64, comes nearer to the case at bar, and we cannot better set forth the facts and ruling in that case than by quoting somewhat extensively from the opinion of Chief Justice Shaw. He says : “ The first objection to the irregularity of the assessment is that the assessors did not comply with the directions of the statute in making out the list containing the valuation and assessment of polls and estates, inasmuch as it did not exhibit in distinct columns ‘ the true value of real estate,’ ‘the reduced value of real estáte,’ and the same of personal estate, but only one column for real, and one for personal, headed ‘ value ’: Rev. St. c. 7, §§ 15, 29, 30. The Revised Statutes, in the sections cited, require that the list, amongst other particulars, shall distinguish ‘true value’ and ‘reduced value.’ The question is whether this irregularity renders the valuation and assessment void, so that each person taxed may take advantage of it, and recover back the amount paid. * * * We take it to be clear that the requisition in question is founded on the common custom of forming a column of ‘reduced value,’ which had existed before the statute, adopted for the ease and convenience of computation in apportioning the taxes. But the reduced value is, of course, a fixed proportion of the true value, as a half, or quarter, 10 per cent., or the like. The true value is first determined by the assessors in the manner provided by law; that is, by returns, or, in default of returns being made, by appraisement; and then the column of reduced value is found by computation, upon a uniform scale of reduction. It follows, therefore, as a necessary consequence, that whether there be a column of reduced value or not makes no difference as to the actual
We think it clear that the assessment rolls are not rendered void by the manner of assessing town and city lots and their improvements, and-that the jurisdiction of the state board was in no way affected thereby. The method pursued by the board itself was unobjectionable, as it considered the lots and their improvements in one class, and subjected both to a uniform percentage of addition or reduction in all cases; and this is all that could be required of it if the aggregates had been extended or carried into one column. We are therefore of the opinion that its acts in equalizing the values of this class of property are valid. What we have said here will apply with equal force to the board’s action touching its equalization of values under one classification of all other real property, whether designated upon the roll under segregated headings or not.
The mode or manner in which the board shall equalize personal property is prescribed by the act, which is that it shall add to or deduct from the aggregate valuation of the several kinds or classes thereof so as to make them conform to their true cash value. See section 8 of the act to provide a state board of equalization, etc., supra. This is a legislative recognition that there exist different kinds and classes of that species of property, but nowhere is there any attempt, that we know of, to specify the classifications, nor to indicate what kind of property shall
The plaintiff was assessed in Multnomah County upon merchandise and stock in trade, the valuation of which was raised by the state board twenty-five per cent. ; but, the board having considered it under a different.classification from that under which the same kind of personalty was considered in Marion, it has exceeded its powers, and the increase is void. There was no increase in Multnomah upon horses, so that the only injury which could have resulted to petitioner is by reason of the raise in the value upon his merchandise and stock in trade; and hence the judgment of the court will be that the action of the state board of equalization be set aside and declared void in so far as it attempted to equalize the valuation of the particular class or kind of personalty denominated “merchandise and stock in trade.” Reversed and remanded, with directions to the lower court to enter judgment in accordance with this opinion.
Reversed.