94 Me. 354 | Me. | 1900
This is an action of debt to recover a supplemental tax assessed against tbe defendant November 13, 1897, on “money at interest in excess of debts, $25,000.”
It is not in controversy that on the first day of April, 1897, tbe defendant was an inhabitant of Topsham liable to taxation in that
Section 97 of ch. 6, R. S., relating to the assessment of taxes requires assessors to “ make perfect lists thereof under their hands ” and section 100 of the same chapter declares that “they shall make a record of their assessment and of the invoice and valuation from which it was made; and before the taxes are committed to the officer for collection, they shall deposit it, or a copy of it, in the assessors’ office, if any, otherwise with the town clerk, there to remain.”
Section 35 of the same chapter further provides that “they may, during their term of office, by a supplement to the invoice and valuation, and the list of assessments, assess such polls and estates their proportion of such tax according to the principles on which the assessment was made, certifying that they were omitted by mistake. Such supplemental assessments shall be committed to the collector with a certificate under the hands of the assessors, stating that they were omitted by mistake.”
It appears from an examination of the record in this case that the original assessment was duly signed by the assessors, but that the supplemental list was written into the original record upon a blank page between the last item of the original assessment and the concluding certificate and signatures of the assessors under the following caption, viz: “Resident supplemental. Committed Nov. 13, 1897.” The assessment against the defendant is as follows: “Purington, Margaret P. Money at interest in excess of debts $25,000,” and states the amount of her supplemental tax to be
It is contended by the learned counsel, for the plaintiff, that the assessors had a right to adopt their signatures on the original record of June 19 to support the later assessment of November 13, and that there was a sufficient authentication of the supplemental assessment both by the signatures on the original record and those on the above named warrant to the collector of November 18 for the collection of the alleged supplemental tax.
It was properly observed in Cressey v. Parks, 76 Maine, 534, that “ when forfeitures are not involved, proceedings for the collection of taxes should be construed practically and liberally; ” but it is the opinion of the court that the list of supplemental assessments in this case is not shown by the record evidence to have been duly and sufficiently authenticated by the signatures of the assessors. To countenance the practice of interpolating in the record of original assessments an unsigned list of supplemental taxes without a certificate that they were “omitted by mistake” from the first assessment, as was done in this case, would induce an unwarrantable laxity in the methods of performing official duties, which would too often result in oral controversies, uncertainty and doubt in regard to the regularity and validity of the assessment. Whether or not such an interpolation of a supplemental tax was made by a single member of the board in the absence and without the participation of his associates, or was done in their presence and with their express approbation, would often become a disputed question of fact. Such a controversy, indeed, is shown to have arisen in the case at bar; but in the view here taken, the merits of that controversy become immaterial, and allusion to it is only made for the purpose of illustrating the mischievous consequences of such a practice.
Nor is the requisite proof of the existence of a supplementary list of taxes, signed by the assessors as the law requires, supplied by the warrant to the collector of November 18 for the collection of certain sums set against the names therein written. For if it be assumed that this warrant was signed by three assessors in their capacity as assessors, though described as selectmen, it is .not in the form required by law, with a list of assessments appended and referred to in the warrant, as in Norridgewock v. Walker, 71 Maine, supra, and Bath v. Whitmore, 79 Maine, 182, but it is in terms a direction to collect certain amounts from the persons named. The supplemental assessment was not incorporated in the warrant. It fails to supply the deficiency in the record evidence of the supplemental assessment relied upon by the plaintiffs.
Judgment for the defendant.