77 Md. 125 | Md. | 1893
delivered the opinion of the Court.
By the Act of 1886, ch. 424, the General Assembly created a municipal corporation in Prince George’s County, under the name of “The Commissioners of Hyattsville.” The power to levy taxes for the support of the municipal government was granted to these Commissioners, but the rate was restricted to fifteen cents on the one hundred dollars of the assessed valuation of property. The taxable basis was declared to be the current assessment made or to be made for county purposes of the real and personal property located within the limits of the corporation. In 1890 the Legislature, by ch. 355 of the Acts passed during that session, amended that provision of the charter which related to the taxable basis, and enacted that the treasurer and two assessors should annually assess “each and every piece of land separately with the improvements thereon, ■and, all personal property within said town, at a fair cash value,” showing in the assessment “each piece of land and the improvements thereon separately, with the assessed value thereof, ***** and the cage of personal property the assessed value and the name of the owner thereof.” An appeal to the Board of Commissioners by persons aggrieved by the assessment was provided for. The Act of 1892, ch. 285, purported to repeal the Act of 1890, and provided in lieu thereof, that the treasurer and assessors in 1892, and biennially thereafter, should assess each and every piece of land within said town separately, with the improvements thereon at a fair cash value, and showing each piece of land and the improvements thereon separately, with the assessed value
Under this statute the land included within the taxable limits of the town was assessed at $369,709, and the improvements at $180,000. Personal property was not assessed at all. When the assessment was completed public notice was given by the president of the Board, “that any taxpayer considering himself aggrieved by said assessment may appeal to the Board of Commissioners of Hyattsville within fifteen days.” After the expiration of the time named in this notice, and though no appeal had been taken by any taxpayer, the Board of Commissioners,- of their own motion, struck from the assessment roll the entire valuation on improvements, and levied a tax of twenty-five cents on each one hundred dollars of the assessed value of the land. Thereupon sundry taxpayers filed a petition in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, praying that a mandamus might issue to compel the Commissioners to
The adoption by the Board of Commissioners of Hyattsville of what is called the single tax system — that is, a system under which the whole burden of taxation is imposed upon the land, to the total exclusion of buildings, improvements and personal property — is the proceeding which caused the petitioning taxpayers to make this application to the Courts. It is obvious that the questions now brought before us are of more than ordinary interest, and are far from being of mere local importance. Apart from the preliminary inquiry as to whether a correct interpretation of the Act of 1892, ch. 285, warrants the exemption of all buildings and improvements in Hyattsville from municipal taxation; the broader one, involving the power of the Legislature under the Declaration of Rights, to impose the whole burden of taxation on one single class of property, to the exclusion of all others, is distinctly presented.
How, the Act of 1892 was manifestly never intended to confer and does not in express terms confer upon the Board of Commissioners of Hyattsville, the authority to exempt from taxation the buildings and improvements situated within the limits of the corporation. On the contrary, it specifically directs the treasurer and assessors to assess every piece of land and every building or improvement separately — that is, to assess both laud and buildings, putting upon the land a valuation and upon the building a separate valuation, precisely as the general assessment law prescribed should be done in the valuation of the same class of property for the purposes of
But beyond this lies a more serious objection to the validity of the Board’s proceedings. The Declaration of Eights, Article fifteen, provides that, “every person in the State, or person holding property therein, ought to contribute his proportion of public taxes for the support of the Government according to his actual worth in real or personal property; yet, fines, duties or taxes may properly and justly be imposed or laid, with a political view for the good government and benefit of the community.” This provision has, with a slight but not material change of phraseology, been a part of the organic law of Maryland for considerably more than a century. Its predominant
But the Act of 1892, not only under the construction placed upon it by the appellee, but palpably by reason of its exemption of all personal property, attempted to overthrow this salutary principle and to disregard the fifteenth Article of the Declaration of Rights, and to substitute an experimental, if not a visionary, scheme, which if suffered to obtain a foothold will inevitably lead to ruinous consequences. By making no provision
The wisdom of providing in the organic law against such abuses is obvious, and the provision by which the people of the State are protected against them, embodies a fundamental principle which underlies the American system of taxation.
The attempt made by the Act of 1892 to disregard the fifteenth Article of the Declaration of Rights by exempting all personal property from assessment must prove abortive, and as the Act undertakes to establish a scheme of taxation not warranted by the organic law, it must be stricken down as null and inoperative.
We are not to be understood as denying to the Legislature the power, when State policy and considerations
Nor can the Act of 1892 be' upheld as one imposing a tax “with a political view,” in contradistinction to one levying a tax for the support of the government. Whilst the Declaration of Rights prescribes the rule of equality in levying taxes for the support of the government, it is careful to provide that the Legislature shall not be confined to the laying of such taxes alone. Hence it declares: “Yet, fines, duties or taxes may properly and
In our opinion, then, the Act of 1892, ch. 285, is null and void, because plainly unconstitutional in its unrestricted exemption of personal property from assessment and taxation. And as the clause purporting to repeal the Act of 1890, ch. 355, is inseparably woven into the re-enacted substitute, and was manifestly not intended to operate as an independent provision, the Act of 1892 as an entirety must fall, and the Act of 1890 consequently still remains in force.
This brings us to the consideration of the only remaining question in the case; and that is as to the remedy. Had the application been for an injunction to restrain the collection of a tax levied under a void Act of Assembly the remedy would have been appropriate and effective. Mayor, &c. of Baltimore vs. Gill, et al., 31 Md., 375. But serious objections are presented in this case to the granting of-the mandamus. The petitioner asks that the Commissioners of Hyattsville be commanded to restore to the assessment roll the valuations on improvements and buildings, and that they cause the assessors to complete the assessment by an assessment of the personal property in the town, and that they be required to levy a tax of not more than twenty-five cents on the hundred dollars. This petition was filed on July the fourteenth, 1892, and the assessment which it sought to have corrected was the assessment required by law to be made during that year; and the taxes which it sought to have levied were taxes for the year 1892. Now, the writ must issue as prayed,.if it is issued at all; and it will never be ordered where, when issued, it would be nugatory. State, ex rel. O’Neill vs. Register, &c., 59 Md., 289. Should the order of the Circuit Court be now reversed and a mandamus■ he issued, it would be impossible for
There is a wide difference between the case at bar and State, ex rel. Webster, et al. vs. County Comm’rs of Balto. Co., 29 Md., 516, where it was held that the time designated for the doing of an act was not of the essence of the thing to be done. But here, as in the cases above referred to, the time prescribed for levying the tax was intended to be a limitation upon the power of the officers; and a mandamus cannot properly be issued to compel them to do that, which, by reason of the lapse of time, they now have no authority to do.
Whilst we hold that the particular relief invoked cannot under these circumstances be granted in this case, we emphatically pronounce the Act of 1892, ch. 285, absolutely void; and any attempt hereafter to make an assessment or a levy under it may be perpetually restrained by injunction.
The order dismissing the petition will he affirmed, only because it is now too late to direct a mandamus to be issued.
Order affirmed, loith costs.