61 N.J.L. 228 | N.J. | 1897
The township of Bernards was incorporated as one of the townships of this state, with all the rights, privileges, powers,' &c., given and granted by the General Township act of 184C and the supplements thereto. By section 4 of that act the freeholders and inhabitants who are qualified to vote at town meetings, were given full power and were directed and required to assemble and hold town meetings in their respective townships at the places designated in the act. By section 8 the persons qualified to vote at town meetings were authorized to make and ordain such regulations and by-laws as the majority of them so assembled should from time to time judge necessary and proper for certain local purposes. Section 11 enacted “that the persons qualified to vote at town meetings shall be and they are hereby empowered at their annual meetings, or at any other meeting duly held for the purpose, to vote, grant and raise such sum or sums of money for the maintenance and support of the poor, the building and repairing of pounds, the opening, making, working and repairing of roads and keeping them in order, in such townships as are authorized to repair their highways by hire, the destruction of noxious wild animals and birds, for running and ascertaining the lines, and prosecuting or defending the common rights of such township, and for other necessary charges and legal objects and purposes thereof, as are or shall be by law expressly vested in the inhabitants of the several townships of this state, by this or some other act of the legislature; which money so voted and granted shall be assessed, levied and collected by the same persons, in the same manner, and under the like fees, fines and penalties as the money raised in such township by the board of chosen • freeholders of the county shall be assessed, levied and collected, and at such times and in such proportions as the said town meetings respectively shall direct and appoint; provided, that the said fines and penalties shall, when recovered, be paid to the clerk of the said township, and be applied to the use of the said township, in such manner as shall from
At the annual town meeting of the inhabitants of Bernards township, held pursuant to law March 4th, 1893, the sum of $1,200 was by a vote of the qualified voters ordered to be raised for' the support of the poor, $4,000 for roads and $500 for removing snow. On application to the governor pursuant to the provisions of an act passed March 20th, 1884, entitled “An act to provide for and secure the raising of revenue for the execution of the public duties of maintaining public schools, preventing the destruction of property by fire, preserving the public health, supporting the poor, maintaining police and keeping the highways and streets in a safe condition for public use within the limits of incorporated cities, towns and municipalities, in cases where the local or municipal authorities or officers fail to provide for the performance of such duties” (Gen. Stat., p. 3411), the governor appointed three persons, freeholders and residents of the township, as commissioners of taxation for the said township. The commissioners, in pursuance of the authority conferred upon them in virtue of the said appointment, made a new levy of taxes under the provisions of the said act, and resolved to levy on the taxable property in the township $2,000 for the protection and maintenance of public health, $2,300 for the maintenance and support of the poor, $324 for the support and maintenance of a police force, $14,000 for keeping the highways and streets in a safe condition for public use and $1,700 for the expense of assessing and collecting such taxes and to meet deficiencies, making in all the sum of $21,124 in lieu of the sum of $5,700, the aggregate amount of appropriations voted at the town meeting, and fixed a percentage of $1 per thousand upon the valuation of taxable property as the rate of taxation.
On the hearing of the certiorari the Supreme Court ex-scinded so much of the levy of the commissioners as exceeded the amounts appropriated by the town meeting for supporting the poor and for keeping highways in a safe condition, on the
The writ of certiorari was sued out by certain taxpayers of the township, and the township authorities, being dissatisfied with the judgment of the Supreme Court, prosecuted this writ of error. The claim of the plaintiffs in error is that the judgment of the Supreme Court was erroneous in that the taxes levied by the commissioners were in all respects within the powers conferred on the commissioners by the act. On the argument of the writ of error, this court of its own motion directed that the case should be reargued on the constitutionality of the act of 1884, and the case was accordingly reargued on constitutional grounds.
The material parts of this act will be stated presently. A preliminary consideration of the source of the power of taxation, and the principles by which power of taxation is controlled, will be serviceable. Under the Norman kings of England, the right to tax to obtain money for public uses was vested in the king, and was exercised by him at his own will. The money directed by him to be raised, was assessed on persons or property by the officers of the exchequer, collected by the sheriff and paid into the exchequer. The expenses of foreign wars increased the burden of taxation upon the English people, and, taxes becoming so onerous, there was resistance, and by force the power of taxation was renounced by the crown and conceded to the people. This
Not the earliest but the most conspicuous of the early concessions in this respect, was the Great Charter granted by King John. By this charter and others that followed it the renunciation of the right of taxation was given to, and the right of taxation conferred upon, the people. In the charter of the ninth year of Henry III., the grant in the first chapter is expressed in these terms : “ We have granted also and given to all the freemen of our realm, for us and our heirs forever, these liberties underwritten, to have and to hold, to them and their heirs forever.” By the confirmation of the Charter of Liberties of Englishmen, granted 25th Edward I. (which, as was said by Sir Edward Coke, “ is but an explanation of this branch of Magna Charta,” 2 Co. Inst. 59), it was granted as well to the archbishops, &c., and also to the earls, &c., and “to all the communality of the land, that for no business henceforth we shall take such manner aids, talks nor prizes, but by the common assent of the realm.” By a later grant contained in the statute de tallagio non conoedendo, passed in the thirty-fourth year of Edward I., it was expressly granted that “ no tallage or aid shall be taken or levied by us or our heirs in our realm without the good will and assent of archbishops, bishops, earls, knights, burgesses and other freemen of the land.” Sir Edward Coke in his comment upon this statute says “ that the word tallagium is a general word and doth include all subsidies, taxes, tenths, fifteenths, impositions and other burdens or charge put or set upon any man.” 2 Co. Inst. 533. By the charter in the twenty-eighth year of Edward I., which was a confirmation of previous charters, it is recited that “ forasmuch as the articles of the Great Charter of Liberties and of the Charter of the Forest, the which King Henry, father of our king that now is, granted to his people for the weal of the realm, have not been heretofore observed and kept because there was no punishment executed upon them, which offended against the points of the charters before mentioned, our lord the king hath again granted, renewed and con
Though by these concessions the right of taxation was vested in the people of England, a legislative power was essential to a grant of money and for providing the means by which moneys so granted should be raised by taxation; but this legislative function was exercised in parliament in a manner not in the ordinary course of legislation. The house of commons, as the representatives of the people, always claimed, and still does claim successfully, the exclusive right to originate money bills, reducing the house of lords to the alternatives of passing or rejecting such bills sent up to it by the house of commons for their consideration.
The right of the popular branch of the government to originate and adopt measures for providing revenue for public purposes was asserted by the colonial assembly as early as 1748. Acts had been passed granting money for the use of the colony, to give effect to which an act was necessary to settle the quotas of the respective counties. Such an act was passed by the house of assembly and sent to the council. The council made amendments to the bill. The house of
By the act of June 28th, 1766, it was enacted that no person or persons except in towns corporate should have the privilege to give his or their voice or vole at any town meeting for electing any town or precinct officer or officers or other business to be done or transacted at any town meeting, unless the person offering such vote is a freeholder, a tenant for years or householder and resident in such township or precinct. Allin. L., p. 288. The act passed February 21st, 1798, embodied the several statutes relating to townships in the general act, which is substantially our present act. It constituted the inhabitants of every township, precinct and ward a body politic and corporate by certain names mentioned. The freeholders and inhabitants qualified to vote were required to assemble at town meetings at a specified time, and were authorized to elect officers for their government and to make and ordain such regulations and by-laws as the majority of them so assembled should judge necessary and proper for certain local purposes. The eleventh section of that act conferred upon the qualified voters of the township at such town meetings the right to vote and grant money for specified local purposes. The eighth section of our present act is in all material respects a copy of section 11 of the act of 1798. Pat. L., p. 276; Rev. L., p. 332. The legislation just referred to constituted the qualified voters of the township assembled in town meeting the legislative body by which the affairs of the township were administered, and invested the town meeting with power to appropriate and raise moneys by taxation for local purposes.
Except as the legislature of the state may confer upon political divisions powers to legislate and to provide revenue for
Every system of taxation consists of two parts—one the levying of taxes, the imposition of taxes on persons or property ; the other the assessment and collection of taxes. The first is a legislative function controlled by constitutional prescriptions ; the other, the assessment and collection of taxes, is mere machinery by which the legislative purpose is effectuated. Whether taxes shall be assessed and collected by officers elected by the people, called assessors and collectors, or by officers holding office under some other authority, is left to legislative discretion. Trustees of Public Schools v. Trenton, 3 Stew. Eq. 667, 678. “The legislature must prescribe the rule under which taxation shall be laid, and originate the authority under which taxing officers assess and collect the taxes; it need not prescribe all the details or fix with precision the sum to be raised. If the rule is prescribed which, in its administration, works out the result, that is sufficient; but to refer the making of the rule to another authority would be in excess of legislative power. To leave to a state officer or board the power to determine whether a tax should be laid for the current'year, or at what rate, or upon what property, prescribes no rule and originates no authority ; it merely attempts to empower some other tribunal to prescribe a rule and set in motion the tax machinery. This is clearly incompetent.” Cooley Tax., p. 50.
The legislature, having prescribed a rule of taxation, may entrust the assessment and collection of taxes, in conformity with prescribed rules, to officers appointed by other authority. The acts providing for taxation of railroads and canals are precedents of this import.* The legislature prescribed that
The duty of the board consists in an examination into the administration of the laws regulating the assessment of taxes, in order to secure the equalization, revision and enforcement of taxation as prescribed by law, with power to direct assessors and other taxing officers to make a reassessment of taxation so that the same may conform to constitutional or other legal rules. Gen. Stat, p. 3344. The statute (Gen. Stat., p. 3404, § 547) which empowers the court on certiorari to revise and correct taxes and make a new assessment is of like import. It confers upon the court no power to tax. It simply requires the court, under its own rules, to correct and amend an assessment of taxes brought up by certiorari, so that it may conform to the laws in virtue of which the taxation was imposed, and to ascertain and determine for what sum such person or property was legally liable to taxation. 25 Am. & Eng. Ency. L. 81, note 2. But the essential power of taxation, the power to levy a tax, cannot be delegated by the legislature. In State v. Sickels, 4 Zab. 125, the Supreme Court held that a resolution of a town meeting to raise for general township expenses as much as the township committee should direct, “ways and means left to the committee,” was illegal as a delegation of the taxing power which
The first section of the act under consideration provides that in case the local boards or officei’s shall neglect or fail to levy the taxes specified in section 5 of the act, or there be a vacancy in the local boards or officers, or the boards or officers have not commenced the assessment or valuation of property for taxation, or the said taxes have not been levied at the time required by law, it shall be the duty of the governor, upon notice to the local authorities, to appoint and commission three freeholders, who shall be residents of such city, town or municipality, to be known as commissioners of taxation, whose duty it should be, .under the authority of the act, to assess and levy the taxes specified in section 5, and to discharge all other duties therein required.
It does not appear in the case that the' assessor elected for the township had vacated his office, but it was admitted by
The fifth section, which defines the duties of these commissioners and prescribes the powers conferred upon them, enacts that the commissioners “ shall have power to levy taxes for such sums as they shall deem expedient for the following and no other purposes: 1. For the support of public schools and the repair of school-houses. 2. For protecting property within such city, town or municipality from fire. -3. For the protection and maintenance of the public health within such city, town or municipality. 4. For the maintenance and support of the poor. 5. For the support and maintenance of a police force within such city, town or municipality. 6. For keeping the highways and streets within the limits of such city, town or municipality in a safe condition for public use. 7. For the expenses of assessing and collecting the taxes levied under this act, and in addition thereto a sum to meet deficiencies not exceeding ten per cent, of the sums required to be raised for the above-stated purposes.”
The objects enumerated in this section for which these commissioners were authorized to levy taxes—support of public schools, repairs of school-houses, protecting property from fire, protecting the public health, support of the poor, maintenance of a police force and the repair of highways and streets—comprise a large part of the duties of municipal governments, for defraying the cost and expenses of which the local power of taxation is exercised ; and the act by its terms applies to all incorporated cities, towns and municipalities. The expenditures annually for these purposes in the cities, towns and municipalities to which the act applies are very large, and the authority to make appropriations for these
This act does not purport in any sense to confer on local municipal bodies powers of taxation. Its legal effect is to delegate the powers mentioned in the act to three persons appointed by the governor. In making this delegation the legislature prescribed no rule by which the taxation should be laid. The power conferred upon the commissioners was in express words the “ power to levy taxes,” with no prescription or limitation, except that the taxes levied for any one year for all purposes should not exceed one and one-quarter per cent., and commits to the judgment and discretion of the commissioners the right to determine whether taxes for the purposes mentioned should be laid, and at what rate and upon what property, as they might deem expedient. Plainly the scheme of taxation devised by this act is a delegation of the power of taxation. A decision which would sustain this legislative action would antagonize fundamental principles of constitutional law and in effect overrule State v. Siekels, State v. Foster and Munday v. Rahway, above cited. In this respect the act is unconstitutional.
Some of the sections provide for the performance of mere ministerial duties in the assessment of taxes—duties which the legislature, having perfected a scheme of taxation, may delegate to other persons. "Whether these sections can be separated from the main provisions of the act, and sustained as in themselves an exercise of competent legislative authority within the doctrine laid down by this court in Johnson v. State, 30 Vroom 535, need not be decided in this case. The writ of certiorari was allowed on condition that taxes assessed in compliance with the vote of the town meeting should first be paid, and the same were paid, and persons assessed for such taxes have not taken out writs of error, and no reason appears on this record which would present that question for decision.' The result is that the judgment of the Supreme Court, in so far as it sustains the assessment of taxes voted at the town meeting, should be affirmed, and with respect to the assess
For affirmance—The Chief Justice, Collins, Garrison, Ludlow. 4.
Fot reversal (and disposition suggested in opinion)—The Chancellor, Lepue, Gummere, Lippincott, Van Syckel, Adams, Bogert, Hendrickson, Krueger, Nixon, Vredenburgh. 11.