43 Iowa 632 | Iowa | 1876
Appellant mainly relies upon section 823 of the Code, which provides: “The assessor shall list every person in his township, and assess all the property, personal and rea] therein.”
This section furnishes no warrant for the conclusion that the assessor shall assess all the property which may have been in his township on the first day of January, of the year for which the assessment is made.
Section 822 provides each assessor shall enter upon the discharge of the duties of his office on the third Monday in January in each year; and section 825 requires him to deliver one of the assessment books to the clerk of his township on or before the first Monday in April. Now it is a more reasonable conclusion that the requirement that the assessor shall assess all the property.in his township refers to the time when the assessment is made, and not to a time two or three weeks before he is authorized to begin the assessment. It is true section 812 provides that personal property shall be listed and assessed each year, in the name of the owner thereof, on the first day of January. But the purpose of this section is to determine who shall pay the taxes, and not for the benefit of what locality they shall be paid. This section has no reference to section 823, and there is no authority for engrafting upon the latter section any provision of the former.
But we are of opinion that the section does not mean literally that the assessor shall assess all the personal property which may happen to be in his township either on the first day of January, or when the assessment is made.
It is not an uncommon thing for persons living in cities to send a horse or a cow to the country to be wintered. It certainly was not the intention of the legislature that such horse or cow should escape taxation for city purposes, if it should be thus temporarily in another township on the first day of January, or when the assessor goes around.
No one would contend that a member of this court, engaged in official duties at Des Moines on the first day of January, or when assessment is made, could be subjected to the heavy local taxes of the city of DeS Moines, upon the personal
Affirmed.