176 A. 480 | Md. | 1935
By section 153 of article 81 of the Code, as enacted by chapter 226 of the Acts of 1929, it is provided: "Whenever any person shall have erroneously or mistakenly *14 paid to the County Commissioners of any of the counties of this State, or to the collector or treasurer for such County Commissioners, or to the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, or its collector, more money for taxes or other charges than was properly and legally chargeable to or collected from such person, the said County Commissioners and the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore shall rectify the error and immediately levy and pay to such person any money that was so paid."
That provision was held in Baltimore v. Home Credit Co.,
In George's Creek Coal Iron Co. v. Allegany County,
That adjudication is directly pertinent to the present question, since the state-wide statute here invoked (Code, art. 81, sec. 153, as re-enacted in 1929), like the provision applicable to the counties only (Code, art. 25, sec. 10), considered in the case just cited, simply placed errors of fact and of law upon the same basis with *16 respect to the recoverability of taxes charged and paid by mistake.
But in the case of Mattare v. Cunningham,
In Metropolitan R. Co. v. District of Columbia,
This action is on an implied assumpsit arising from the duty of the municipality, as declared by section 153 of article 81 of the Code, as re-enacted in 1929, to refund to the plaintiff tax payments mistakenly exacted. The terms of the statute make no discrimination between mistakes of law and of fact in regard to the duty of refunding erroneous tax collections. Unquestionably a suit for the repayment of taxes assessed and collected as the result of a mistake of fact would be barred by limitations, if not brought within three years after the cause of action accrued. To accord a longer period for suits to enforce the refund of tax payments made by mistake of law, and thus to distinguish between the rights of reimbursement to which the same statutory declaration refers, would involve a consequence for which there is no apparent legislative intent. There should be a clearly adequate basis for such a distinction to justify the recognition of a right on the part of a taxpayer to require at any time within twelve years the return of tax payments collected from him under a misapprehension of law. Our conclusion is that there was error in the rulings on the demurrers and prayers.
Judgment reversed, with costs. *19