American Tobacco Co. v. City of Richmond
American Tobacco Co. v. City of Richmond
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
These cases were heard together and require the determination of the situs for local taxation of certain tobacco of the American Tobacco Company, a foreign corporation, which was stored in its warehouse in the city of Danville on February 1st of each of the years 1916 and 1917.
For the city of Richmond it is claimed that the company being a manufacturer, such property is taxable as representing a part of its invested capital, and that the principal office or business domicile of the company being in the city of Richmond, such capital is there taxable, as intangible property. The city of Danville, on the other hand, claims that the tobacco, being tangible, is therefore taxable at its actual location.
Elaborate and learned arguments are made, and it is fair to say that originally the question was not free from doubt. However, since the decision of the case of Commonwealth v. United Cigarette Machine Co., Ltd., 119 Va. 447, 89 S. E. 935, followed by Union Tanning Co. v. Commonwealth, et al., 123 Va. 610, 96 S. E. 780, construing the recent Virginia statutes involved, the question must be regarded as definitely settled here, and for the reasons there clearly and sufficiently stated.
In order to determine the other questions here involved, it is necessary to recite the pertinent facts leading up to this litigation. Prior to October, 1917, both in Richmond and in Danville, as well as in the counties of Chesterfield and Halifax, where the company has warehouses in which it stores tobacco, by common consent, such tobacco was listed and subjected to local taxes, in these several localities. At that time, however, the examiner of records in the Richmond district reported the company as liable for omitted taxes for the years 1915, 1916 and 1917 upon the same property as intangible which had been previously assessed as tangible property in the other localities mentioned, and the city of Richmond thereupon assessed taxes thereon for those years as intangible property at the local rate prescribed, thirty cents on the one hundred dollars of value. Whereupon the company made application, under Code, section 571, to the proper courts in Chesterfield, Halifax and Danville for relief from the local taxes thereon which had been previously assessed against it in these localities for the years 1916 and 1917. It did not make and
In our opinion, the judgment of the Richmond court is without error as to these taxes for the years 1916 and 1917, and it will therefore be affirmed, and the judgment of the Danville court is erroneous; therefore it will be reversed.
As to the taxes for the year 1915, the commissioner had already erroneously assessed the tobacco of the company stored in its warehouses in Richmond on February 1st of that year at the local rate on tangible property ($1.65 per $100), instead of thirty cents, the legal local rate on intangible property. This had been done deliberately upon the advice of the city attorney, and apparently with the knowledge that the company also at the time had tobacco
We conclude, therefore, that the Richmond court erred in refusing to exonerate the company and in holding it liable as for $5,123.94 omitted taxes upon intangible property for the year 1915, because that identical property 'had ■neither been concealed nor omitted, but its existence, character and value had been fully disclosed, and there was a mutual error by which it had been erroneously assessed elsewhere as tangible property; and hence,- that the city of Richmond cannot reassess it, because the same limitation
The order will therefore be amended so as to correct this error, and the cases will be remanded for such further orders, if any, as may be necessary.
Order of Richmond court amended and affirmed.
Order of Danville court reversed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- American Tobacco Company v. City of Richmond and American Tobacco Company v. City of Danville
- Cited By
- 3 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. TAXATION — Tangible and Intangible Property — Tobacco in Storage — Situs for Property. — Where it appeared from the record that the chief office and business domicile of a foreign corporation was in Richmond, where it conducted its business of manufacturing tobacco in thi3 State, tobacco bought for the-purpose of manufacture and held in this State, in which its capital is invested, must be taxed as a part of such capital, as intangible property, and the situs of such property for taxation was at Richmond, its business domicile prior to act of March 6, 1918 (Acts 1918, p. 173). By that act the General Assembly has recognized this as the law then existing, but has changed it by providing that on and after February 1, 1919, the situs for the taxation of such property shall be in the county or city in which it is physically located, though it must be still classed and taxed as intangible property. 2. Taxation — Omitted Property — Property not Omitted but Erroneously Assessed.- — Omitted taxes are taxes upon property which either because it has been concealed, overlooked, or for some other insufficient reason, has escaped taxation. Where-the taxpayer did not conceal and the local officials did not overlook the property, but there was a mutual mistake as to the class of the property — that is, whether it was tangible or intangible — as to its legal situs for taxation, and the property was therefore erroneously assessed elsewhere, the municipality cannot after two years reassess the property, because-the same limitation which binds the taxpayer under section 571 of the Code of 1904 also binds the city in such cases of erroneous assessment.