76 So. 142 | Miss. | 1917
delivered the opinion of the court.
J. M. Little, the appellee, who was a citizen and taxpayer of district three of Smith county, Miss., filed a hill in the chancery court of said county against the sheriff and tax collector seeking an injunction against the sheriff to restrain him from collecting an eight mill road tax on two thousand four hundred and ninety dollars worth of property owned by the complainant in said district and county, said tax amounting to nineteen dollars and ninety-two cents. He alleges in the hill that the hoard of supervisors entered an order on their minutes adopting chapter 177 of the Laws of 1916 as a road law for district No. 3 of Smith county, and that they levied an ad valorem road tax of eight mills .on the dollar in said
The first question we will notice is wliether or hot chapter 177 is independent of the last 11 sections of the Code chapter on “Roads, Ferries, and Bridges,” or whether section 4469 is a limitation on the tax authorized under chapter 177, Laws of 1916. Under the chapter on Roads, Ferries, and Bridges there are two separate road contract schemes, and in addition to this the old system of working under the overseer system. Section 4469 provides for a road tax not to exceed three mills on the dollar. This system of road working was 'brought forward from the Laws of 1900 and begins with section 4465, and the concluding section 4475 of this system provides that the foregoing eleven sections shall not apply in any county in the state except by order of the board of supervisors to that effect duly entered on their minutes. Another system is contained in said chapter, beginning at section 4441 of the Code, and in section 4443, under this system, it is provided the board
“It furnishes an entirely separate and distinct method from that provided by the Code sections in question."
It is manifest from this opinion as well as from section 85 of the Constitution that the Code sections did not impose a limitation on the taxing power granted in chapter 177. A similar law was construed by the court in the ease of Lang v. Board of Supervisors of Harrison County, 75 So. 126, in which opinion the court used the following language:
“If the act is to he regarded as an additional method independent of other methods, as it seems to us it must he, then it follows that its own terms are to govern unless there is some general statute broad enough in its terms to make a contrary conclusion mandatory."
The legislature in chapter 177 in section 2 provides as follows: “The hoard of supervisors may raise funds for the working and constructing of public roads and building bridges by a commutation tax of three dollars
Unless the limitation “not to exceed five per centum” be construed as a limitation on the power of the board to levy this tax, there is no limitation in this chapter'. Chapter 85 of the Laws of 1916 is the general law on the limitation of the power of the board of supervisors to levy tax and from this limitation roads, courthouses, county common schools, and agricultural high schools are excepted. There is therefore no limitation in this chapter on the power of the board of supervisors to levy taxes, and a careful search, of the Constitution fails to disclose any section in the Constitution which imposes a limit on the power of the county to tax at all. The legislature has granted the power to tax to the board of supervisors in chapter 177 without restriction at least under five per cent, and the levy involved here does not approximate this limit. If there is any power in the courts to limit the board of supervisors in their powers and duties of levying taxes for lawful purposes, it does not arise in this case, and would not arise unless the tax levied was manifestly in excess of the needs for lawful purposes, and we will not decide that question until it is properly presented for decision.
It follows from what we have said that the judgment of the court below was erroneous, and it is hereby reversed, and judgment here dismissing the bill.
Reversed and dismissed.
