136 Minn. 260 | Minn. | 1917
Certiorari to review the action of the Minnesota Tax Commission in the assessment of certain memberships in the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce. The local taxing authorities assessed the memberships, of which there were 550, as general personal property. Their value was $4,000 each, and, pursuant to the classification statute, they were assessed on the basis of 40 per cent of true value, that is, at $1,600. The relators claim that the memberships should be assessed as moneys and credits. So assessed they would contribute to the public revenue at the fixed statutory rate of three mills on the dollar. They claim, further, that if assessed as general personal property the assessment should be based on the value of the memberships over the value of the tangible property of the chamber upon which taxes are paid. The tax commission entered an order refusing to disturb the assessment. This is the.order under review.
In the Rogers case there was no attempt to assess as general personal property. The taxing authorities assessed as moneys and credits. The relators claimed that the memberships were not moneys and credits and were not property within the statutory classification of taxable property. Whether, if assessable, they were assessable as moneys and credits or as general personal property as in the Duluth case was not a matter of controversy. The state was not faying to assess them as general personal property. No one claimed that they should be so assessed. Obviously it was to the advantage of relators that they be assessed if at all as moneys and credits. It is clear that it was never in the mind of the court that they'could not be assessed as general personal property, or that they must be assessed as moneys and credits. Whether they were property, assessable under the statute, was the large question, and this was the actual question litigated and determined. The judgment is not a bar. We have not overlooked the case of New Orleans v. Citizens’ Bank, 167 U. S. 371, 17 Sup. Ct. 905, 42 L. ed. 202, cited by relators, nor the later one of Baldwin v. Maryland, 179 U. S. 220, 21 Sup. Ct. 105, 45 L. ed. 160, nor the earlier one of Keokuk & W. R. Co. v. Missouri, 152 U. S. 301, 14 Sup. Ct. 592, 38 L. ed. 450.
Value of 550 memberships at $4,000 ..................$2,200,000.00
Value of tangible property of chamber, now taxed........ 1,164,744.27
Excess value of memberships over tangible property......$1,035,255.73
Excess value applicable to each of 550 memberships...... 1,882.27
Assessable value of each membership on basis of 40 per cent 752.90
Each membership should be assessed $752.90. This principle was adopted in the Duluth ease. The assessment there involved was prior to the classification statute. Therefore the assessment was upon actual value. In the opinion the method of reaching the assessable value was not discussed, for that which we now adopt was the one for which the state contended. The decision is not binding as a precedent upon the proper basis of valuation, but we think the correct basis was adopted.
The commission was correct in holding, as necessarily it did in entering the order under review, that the former judgment was not a bar and that the memberships for purposes of taxation of the excess value bad a situs in Minneapolis. Assessments, however, should be on the basis
Order reversed.