159 F.2d 13 | D.C. Cir. | 1946
This proceeding concerns tangible personal property taxes in the District of Columbia. Respondent owned certain furniture and equipment which she used in the conduct of a rooming-and-boarding house. She had acquired this property, together with the “good-will” of the business, in 1940 and 1941 for $8,500. She filed personal property tax returns for the fiscal years 1942, 1944, and 1945, listing the property at $3,000, $2,000, and $1,700, respectively. She filed no return for the fiscal year 1943.
On her income tax returns for the corresponding periods, the taxpayer listed the cost of the property at $8,500, the estimated useful life at from five to ten years, and claimed a depreciation deduction of $550 a year.
Upon examination of the property tax returns, the Assessor reassessed the prop
Petitioner makes two contentions, (1) that the taxpayer is estopped to deny, for personal property tax purposes, the “valuation” set up by the same taxpayer in her income tax returns for depreciation purposes, and (2) that the Assessor is authorized to propose an assessment from the best information he can procure, that the assessments in the present case were based upon information furnished in the income tax returns, that this was the best information available as to value, and that the assessments were, therefore, valid.
Petitioner is in error in its first contention. The personal property tax is levied upon the fair cash value of the property,
In so far as previous decisions of the Board of Tax Appeals have held that estop-pel applies to a taxpayer claiming one figure as undepreciated cost and another as fair cash value, they were in error.
We agree with petitioner’s second contention that the Assessor cannot be held to any fixed formula, or specific catalog of data, in determining his proposed assessments, and is entitled to base his action on the best information he can procure.
It follows that in the case at bar, when the taxpayer pleaded that the proposed valuations were in excess of the fair cash value of the property, an issue of fact was presented which should have been resolved by a finding. For lack of a finding
Reversed and remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
The assessor added to the income tax figures of the taxpayer $750 for supplies and linen. The record offers no explanation for this addition.
D.C.Code (1940) § 47—1203.
D.C.Code (1940) § 47—1202.
D.C.Code (1940) § 47—1203.