Blackshear Co. v. State
Blackshear Co. v. State
Opinion of the Court
And said section further provides, in subdivision 13 thereof, that said state tax commission shall have authority “to assess, or to cause to be assessed by the proper officer, any property subject to taxation, and to set aside and hold for naught any valuation or assessment of property made by any county officer within this state or by any board * * * of county commissioners, or by any other officers authorized to make assessments, and
The appellant, by its plea 1, which is set out in the record, and to which the court sustained the state’s demurrer, in effect asserts that not only is the state tax commission without authority, as expressly declared in the subdivision of the statute last quoted, to set aside an assessment which has been confirmed by a court of record on appeal, but are also without authority, on account of section 2260 of the Code, which appellant insists is a further limitation of the power conferred on said comfnission by said section 2223, to set aside an assessment that has been made by a county tax commissioner, provided the taxpayer assents to, or agrees with the commissioner on, the assessments and pays to the county tax collector the taxes due thereon.
We are of opinion that such contention is without merit.— State Tax Commission v. Bailey & Howard, 179 Ala. 620, 60 South. 913. Said section 2260 provides that: “Whenever it shall come to the knowledge of the [county tax] commissioners that any person or property within their respective counties has not been assessed with the tax or taxes for the current year, or for any previous year not more than five years before that time, he shall forthwith assess the same and deliver the assessment to the clerk of the court of county commissioners, or other court of like jurisdiction, unless the payer shall, upon being notified by the tax commissioner that he has made such assessment, agree with the tax commissioner upon the same, and shall pay the collector the amount of taxes and fees due by him.”
It was not the object of this section, in declaring that, where an assessment made by a county tax commissioner has been assented to by the taxpayer and the taxes thereon paid to the collector, the commissioner need not report the assessment to the county board of revenue, or commissioners’ court, to make such assessment conclusive on the state tax commission; but the object of the section, and of the subsequent sections, was to provide that an assessment made by a county tax commissioner was ineffective and could not be enforced, unless confirmed by the commis
We see no conflict whatever between this section (2260) and section 2223, which confers, as seen, upon the state tax commission the power to set aside and annul essessments.—State Tax Commission v. Bailey & Howard, supra.
As to whether taxes which have been paid by a taxpayer on the assessment of a county tax commissioner will, when such assessment has been set aside by the state tax commission, be available to the taxpayer as a credit on the taxes due under the new assessment made by the state tax commission, or whether such payment would be refunded to the taxpayer on application under section 2340 of the Code, or whether it would require a special legislative enactment to reimburse the taxpayer, are questions not before us. We fail to appreciate the force of the suggestion that those questions should have some weight in arriving at a proper construction of the sections of the Code now under review.
Reversed and remanded.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.