204 Pa. Super. 373 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1964
Opinion by
This is an appeal by the Easton School District from the judgment entered on the pleadings in an assumpsit action brought to recover a portion of the 1963 school taxes. Laubach Realty Company (Laubach) paid its 1963 school tax under protest while awaiting the outcome of an appeal to the Northampton County Board of Assessment and Revision of Taxes (Board) from its real property assessment for 1962.
The school district says in its brief that the “only real question in the case” is whether or not the taxpayer followed the correct procedure in appealing its assessment under The Fourth to Eighth Class County Assessment Law of 1943, May 21, P. L. 571, as amended, 72 P.S. §5453.101 et seq.
The steps taken by the taxpayer to question the assessed valuation of its real property are as follows:
Upon being notified during the summer of 1962 that its 1962 assessed valuation was set at ¡¡¡>586,600, Laubach filed a written appeal on August 17, 1962 with the Northampton County Board of Assessment and Revision of Taxes pursuant to §701, as amended, of The Fourth to Eighth Class County Assessment Law, supra, 72 P.S. §5453.701, which requires such appeal to be filed by the first day of September.
Meanwhile Laubach’s 1963 school taxes were levied upon the original 1962 assessment of $586,600, and became due on July 1, 1963. On August 23, 1963, over a year after its appeal was filed and with its outcome still pending, Laubach paid under written protest the 1963 school tax of $12,611.90, based on the original assessment.
When the board’s order of September 26, 1963, previously referred to, was filed, it reflected a lowering of Laubach’s 1962 assessment from $586,600 to $365,-700, reducing the 1963 tax which should have been paid by Laubach from $12,611.90 to $7862.55, or an overpayment of $4,654.36 (reflecting the appropriate adjustment of the 2% discount for payment prior to September 1, 1963).
After the taxpayer’s request for the refund of its overpayment was refused, it brought this assumpsit action as authorized by the Act of May 21, 1943, P. L. 349, as amended, 72 P.S. §§5566c, 5566d. The school
The essence of the objections is that the taxpayer did not file an appeal from the board’s failure to act by October 1, 1962.
Section 704 states in part: “Any person who shall have appealed to the board for relief from any assessment, who may feel aggrieved by the order of the board in relation to such assessment, may appeal from the order of the board to the court of common pleas of the county within which such property is situated, and for that purpose may present to said court, or file in the prothonotary’s office within sixty days after the board entered its order on the said assessment, a petition . . . setting forth the facts of the case, and thereupon the court shall proceed ... to hear the said appeal . . . .” (Emphasis supplied) The Fourth to Eighth Class Countv Assessment Law, supra, §704, as amended, 72 P.S. §5453.704.
The school district contention is that the taxpayer was required to file its appeal by December 1, 1962, i.e., sixty days after October 1st, the last day upon which the board was directed by the legislature to hear and act upon appeals. There was no order of the board to appeal from until the order of September 26, 1963. The taxpayer had no standing to appeal, and the court had no jurisdiction to entertain an appeal until that order was filed.
Likewise in the instant case, the board’s failure to act upon the appeal properly taken to it within the statutory deadline shall not be visited upon a taxpayer who did everything required by the statute to protect its right to a refund of an overpayment in light of the board’s subsequent decision.
Since the board’s second and third contentions are but restatements of the “only real question in the case,” i.e., the failure of the taxpayer to appeal from the nonaction of the board, they will not be discussed. As for the fourth contention, the court below stated “. . . it is admitted that the 1962 assessment was revised. The form of [the copy of the board’s order] becomes immaterial and of no legal consequence.”
After the court below entered judgment against the school district, the school district petitioned the court
The practice under which municipalities retain funds unlawfully received by them was referred to by this court as “unmoral,” and the legislature was recognized as correcting such a practice by passage of the Act of May 21, 1943, P. L. 349, supra, which imposed “upon municipalities standards of common honesty in relation to the collection of taxes, compelling them, for the first time, to refund taxes paid to them under mistake of law.” Longacre Park Heating Co. v. Delaware County, 160 Pa. Superior Ct. 252, 255, 50 A. 2d 706 (1947).
Judgment affirmed.