154 Ga. 814 | Ga. | 1923
None of the rulings in the headnotes require any elaboration, except that set out in the 12th headnote. It is strenuously urged, that, as plaintiff made returns purporting to include all his money, notes, and accounts for the years 1910,. 1911, 1912, and 1913, which were received by the tax-receiver without protest, and paid the taxes due on this species of property on the basis of the amount embraced in these returns, except for the year 1913, which he tendered, he can not be required to pay additional taxes, although such returns did not embrace all his property of this class, it being, under such circumstances, a matter of undervaluation and not one of omission, when it is afterwards discovered that such returns were false and fraudulent. When the owner omits to make returns for the years in which such returns should have been made, he is required to do so for each year in which he is delinquent. Civil Code (1910), § 1055. When the omitted property is of that character which should have been returned to the tax-receiver of the county, this officer should notify in writing such delinquent, requiring that he shall make a return
Now, when is the owner of property a defaulter in regard to returns of it for taxation? Must he wholly omit to make any return, to be a defaulter ? If he returns some property and fails to return other property, is he a defaulter pro tanto ? If he makes a false and fraudulent return, which does not embrace all of his property of a given class, is he a defaulter ? If property, embraced in a return made by the'owner for taxation, in the judgment óf the receiver is returned below its value, he shall assess the value at once or in thirty days. Civil Code (1910), § 1097. If he does not make such assessment at once, or within thirty days after notice to the taxpayer (§ 1098), he can not do so afterwards. Bohler v. Verdery, 92 Ga. 715 (19 S. E. 36); Douglas v. Forrester, 150 Ga. 57 (102 S. E. 347). These sections apply when the owner makes a return embracing all his property, but where it is returned below its value. But if the owner fails to make a return, in whole or in part, that is, if he omits to embrace in his return all of his property or all of a given class, it is the duty of the receiver to assess what is omitted, according to law in force at the time when he should have made his return, and collect the taxes due on the omitted property for former years. This is true although the return of the taxpayer purports on its face to embrace all of his property. If the taxpayer has $10,000 in money, and returns only $500 as all his money, he is a tax-defaulter as to $9,500; and when knowledge of the fact that the owner had the larger sum comes to the tax-receiver and tax-collector, it would be their duty to assess the same. So, if the owner of notes of the market value of $15,000 returns his notes for taxation in the amount of $1000, he is a defaulter as to $14,000 of his notes. This would not be a case of undervaluation of these instruments, but would amount to an
When this case was here on demurrer (150 Ga. 57), this court construed "the allegation that the plaintiff had returned his taxable property as required by law, . . as against a general demurrer, to mean that the plaintiff had returned all his taxable