Casanovas & Cía., Sucrs., Inc. v. Court of Tax Appeals
Casanovas & Cía., Sucrs., Inc. v. Court of Tax Appeals
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
In this case we issued a writ of certiorari on May 29 of this year which was discharged on the following November 18, and on that same date a new writ was issued, all in conformity with our decision in 61 P.R.R. 52, wherein the essential facts of the case are extensively set forth. As we said then (p. 54), the question for decision was reduced to determining whether or not the refusal to deduct the salary of the president and the secretary of the petitioning corporation during the three years in controversy constituted error.
But it appears from the record that, in deciding this point, the Court of Tax Appeals based its decision on a
But before deciding the question to which we have referred, we must decide whether or not in arriving at the conclusions which the respondent tribunal arrived at, it complied with due process of law. The record shows that said tribunal rendered the decision appealed from without holding any hearing whatsoever, basing its decision .exclusively on the contents of the record in the possession of the Board of Review and Equalization, from which it took Mr. Godoy’s memorandum. That procedure on the part of the said tribunal violates flagrantly the constitutional guarantee of due process of law, as we held in Mayagüez Sugar Co. v. Court of Tax Appeals, 60 P.R.R. 737.
For these reasons, the decision appealed from should be reversed and the case remanded to the respondent tribunal for the holding of a hearing in accordance with law.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.