59 Ala. 195 | Ala. | 1877
The constitutions of 1868 and 1875 each ordains “ That the General Assembly may levy a poll-tax not to exceed one dollar and fifty cents on each poll, which shall be applied exclusively in aid of the public school fund.” It is contended before us that the word “ exclusively ” requires that the entire sum of the poll-tax, without abatement or diminution for any purpose, shall become part of the school fund. We think this construction too narrow and strict. The exact meaning of the convention, as we understand it, is that the poll-taxes shall, for all time, constitute a school fund, which shall not and can not be appropriated to any other object. It was not contemplated that it should be relieved of the common burden of all revenue raised under our statutes—the expense of its own assessment and collection. We think the following provisions of our statutes do not violate the clause of the constitution, copied at the opening of this opinion. “Act to revise and amend ‘an act to keep in each county of this State a proportionate share of the public school money,’” approved March 19, 1875—sec-tion 11 thereof; Pamph. Acts, 56; section 38 of the Revenue Law of 1875, page 19; section 15, ch. 5, Revenue Law, approved March 6, 1876, pages 58-9; section 9, page 8, of act to keep proportionate part of public school money in each county, approved April 19, 1873; section 42 of the Revenue Law of 1868, page 312; Code of 1876, sections 402, 414, 424. So, we think it was competent for the legislature to charge upon the poll-tax fund the commissions of its assessment and collection.
In the Revenue Law of 1868, section 59, page 316, after declaring the rate of commissions to be paid the tax-collector, graduated by the amount of taxes collected, and directing that the collector “ shall be authorized to retain the same rate of commissions out of the county taxes,” the statute further enacts that the collector “ shall be allowed by the auditor five per cent, for collecting the poll-tax.” At that time the poll-tax and other school moneys raised by taxation
Was the Auditor clothed with power to authorize the tax-collector to retain out of the poll-tax fund to be collected for 1877, the commissions due to him and the assessor for assessing and collecting the poll-taxes for 1875 and 1876? No-statute has been brought to our attention which confers this power, and we have not been able to find any warrant for such order. True, the Auditor’, in settling with the tax-collector, is clothed'with authority to decide the amount of' commissions due to the assessor and collector in regard to the poll-taxes embraced in that settlement; but his authority does not extend beyond this. His order, if given, was utterly void. Neither can the statute of set-off avail the tax-collector. It does not reach such a case as this.—Hibbard v. Clark, 56 N. H. 355; Finnegan v. City of Fernandina, 15 Fla. 379; Cobb v. Corp. Eliz. City, 75 N. C. 1. Taxes and the support of the common schools are wants vital to the-public welfare, which can not be defeated by cross demands," however equitable and meritorious. We admit the hardship in the present case, but the legislature is alone competent to relieve it.
It results from what we have said that the tax-collector is entitled to retain for his own and the assessor’s commissions for the year 1877, but not for the previous years.
The judgment of the City Court is reversed, and the cause-remanded to be proceeded in according to the terms of this opinion.
Whether the present Auditor rightly reviewed and reversed