THE ATTORNEY GENERAL 

OF TEXAS 

Honorable Robert Hill Trapp Opinion No. JM-1192 

County Attorney 

San Jacinto County Re: Application of section 

P. 0. Box 430 31.04(a) of the Tax Code to tax 

Coldspring, Texas 77331 bills which cannot be mailed 

because of an unknown address 

(RQ-1800) 

Dear Mr. Trapp: 

You ask the following question: 

Whether Sec. 31.04(a) of the Property Tax 

Code, providing for the postponement of the 

delinquency date for tax bills mailed after 

January 10, means that a delinquency date is 

never established for tax bills that cannot 

be mailed because of an unknown address. 

We are informed that the staff of the State Property 

Tax Board consistently has construed section 31.04 of the 

code to forbid the establishment of a delinquency date and 

the imposition of penalties and interest in an instance in 

which no tax bill is sent because the address of the owner 

is not known. In Letter Opinion 89-60 (1989), this office 

was asked whether the construction by the staff of the State 

Property Tax Board of section 31.04 was correct. We concluded that it was. After reconsidering the issue, we 

conclude that the administrative construction of the State 

Property Tax Board is incorrect; we hereby overrule Letter 

Opinion 89-60. 

Section 31.04 of the Tax Code provides the following in 

relevant part: 

(4 If a tax bill is mailed after January 

10, the delinquency date provided by Section 

31.02 of this code is postponed to the first 

day of the next month that will provide a 

period of at least~ 21 

of mailing for payment 

day~faf~teesthebe~~:; 

P. 6290 
Honorable Robert Hill Trapp - Page 2 (JM-1192) 

delinquent unless the taxing unit has adopted 

the discounts provided by Section 31.05(c) of 

this code, in which case the delinquency date 

is determined by Subsection (d) of this 

section. 

. . . . 

(e) If the delinquency date for a tax is 

postponed under Subsection (a) of this section, that postponed delinquency date is the 

date on which penalties and interest begin to 

be incurred on the tax as provided by Section 

33.01 of this code. 

The letter requesting the letter opinion from this 

office set forth the administrative construction adopted by 

the Office of General Counsel of the State Property Tax 

Board: 

If a tax office never mailed a tax bill, a 

delinquency date has not been established, 

and penalties and interest should not be 

added to the tax due. A delinquency date is 

established only when a tax office mails an 

original tax bill. 

Letter from Rep. Allen Hightower to Attorney General Jim 

Mattox (July 17, 1989) (quoting Mr. Dennis Hart, Office of 

General Counsel, State Property Tax Board). 

The advice by the State Property Tax Board was based 

upon that agency's administrative construction of the effect 

of a 1985 amendment to subsection (e) of that section.1 

1. The State Property Tax Board has construed section 

31.04 of the code in this manner since the adoption of the 

1985 amendments to the section that added what is now subsection (e). We note that the construction placed upon a 

statute by the agency charged with its administration is 

entitled to great weight, Ex narte Roloff, 510 S.W.2d 913 

(Tex. 1974): State v. Aransas Dock & Channel CO., 365 S.W.2d 

220 (Tex. Civ. APP. - San Antonio 1963, writ 

especially where 

ref'd), 

contemporaneous, or nearly so, with the 

enactment of the statute itself. Burrouahs v. Lvles, 181 

S.W.Zd 570 (Tex. 1944); Stanford v. Butler, 181 S.W.2d 269 

(Tex. 1944). 

P. 6291 
Honorable Robert Hill Trapp - Page 3 (JM-1192) 

Subsection (e), which has not been changed since its 1985 

amendment, provides: 

(e) If the delinquency date for a tax is 

postponed under Subsection (a) of this section, that postponed delinquency date is the 

date on which penalties and interest begin to 

be incurred on the tax as provided by Section 

33.01 of this code. 

Acts 1985, 69th beg., ch. 753, § 1, at 2579. Prior to the 

1985 amendment of subsection (==I, that subsection provided 

the following: 

For purposes 

unit's tax bills 

earliest date on 

all or substantially all of the tax bills. 

The difficulty in construing section 31.04 arose because 

that section's apparent conflict with section 31.01 of 

code. 

Section 31.01 of the code imposes on the assessor 

each 

bill 

bill 

of 

the 

for 

tax 

tax 

taxing unit the duty of preparing and mailing a 

and sets forth those items of information that a 

must contain. That section provides in pertinent part: 

(a) Except as provided by Subsection (f) 

of this section, the assessor for each taxing 

unit shall prepare and mail a tax bill to 

each person in whose name the property is 

listed on the tax roll or to his authorized 

agent. The assessor shall mail tax bills by 

October 1 or as soon thereafter as practicable. 

. . . . 

(f) The governing body of a taxing unit 

may provide in the manner required by law for 

official action by the body that a tax bill 

not be sent until the.total amount of unpaid 

taxes the unit collects on the property is 

$25 or more. Penalties and interest do not 

accrue during a period when a bill is not 

sent because of the provisions of this 

section. 

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Honorable Robert Hill Trapp - Page 4 (JM-1192) 

(g) EXCeDt as orovided bv Subsection If) 

of this section. failure to send or receive 

the tax bill ouired bv this section does 

not affect thertaliditv of the tax, oenaltv, 

or interest, the due date. the existence of a 

tax lien, or anv nroc ure instituted to 

collect a tax.2 (Emphaszt added.) 

It is our understanding that the staff of the board 

construed the underscored language of subsection (9) of 

section 31.01 to be in conflict with the amended version of 

subsection (e) of section 31.04. Statutes bearing upon the 

same subject matter should be construed together and both 

given effect, if it is possible to do so, because the repeal 

of a statute by implication is not favored. T exas Den't of 

Pub. Safetv v. Schaeibe, 687 S.W.2d 727 (Tex. 1985); 

Standard v. Sadler, 383 S.W.2d 391 (Tex. 1964). However, in 

an instance in which two statutory provisions enacted at the 

same time or during different sessions of the legislature 

are irreconcilable, the statute latest in time of enactment 

prevails. See Gov't Code .Q 311.026. The staff of the 

board, invoking that principle, concluded that subsection 

(e) of section 31.04 controlled over subsection (9) of 

section 31.01, because it was the provision enacted later in 

time. 

Admittedly, a reading of section 31.04 of the code, in 

isolation from other provisions, tends to support the 

board's construction. However, when section 31.04 is construed with other provisions of the Tax Code3 and of the 

Rules of Civil Procedure, 4 it becomes clear that the board's 

construction cannot be reconciled with other statutory 

2. Subsection (f) was amended in 1987 to raise the 

minimum amount of taxes due that triggers the duty to send 

a tax bill from $5 to $25. Acts 1987, 70th Deg., ch. 834, 

§ 1, at 2870. Subsection (g) has not been amended since the 

code's enactment in 1979. 

3. See. e.a., Tax Code 55 25.02(l), 33.04. 

4. Rule 117a of the Rules of Civil Procedure governs 

citation in suits for delinquent ad valorem taxes and 

specifically provides for service by publication in the 

event that the name or address of a delinquent taxpayer is 

unknown. The rule was first added in 1947 and most recently 

amended in 1987. 

P. 6293 
Honorable Robert Hill Trapp - Page 5 (JM-1192) 

provisions. The State Property Tax Board's construction of 

section 31.04 presupposes that the legislature intended the 

section to govern in all instances in which no tax bill is 

mailed. For two reasons, we disagree with this construction 

of the relevant provisions. 

First, if section 31.04 were intended to govern in 

instances in which no tax bill - be mailed, then the 

irreconcilable conflict between that provision and section 

31.01 arose first, not in 1985, but in 1979 when the Tax 

Code originally was enacted. Section 31.04 originally 

provided the following: 

(a) If tax bills are mailed after Januarv 

10. the delinouencv date Drovided bv Section 

31.02 of this code is DostDoned to the first 

dav of the next month that will Drovide a 

period of at least 21 days after the date of 

mailina for Davment of taxes before deli..B= 

SBD%. 

(b) If the delinquency date is postponed 

as provided by this section, the assessor who 

mails the bills shall notify the governing 

body of each taxing unit whose taxes are 

included in the bills of the postponement. 

If the due date for state taxes is postponed, 

the county assessor-collector shall notify 

the State Property Tax Board of the postponement. 

(c) A payment option provided by Section 

31.03 of this code or a discount provided by 

Section 31.05 of this code does not apply to 

taxes that are calculated too late for it to 

be available. (Emphasis added.) 

If the 1985 amendment to subsection (e) of section 

31.04 had never been enacted, there would still be a 

conflict between the two sections under the State Property 

Tax Board's construction of section 31.04. The conflict 

arises between the original 

of section 31.04 and the original version of subsection 

1979 version of subsection I;; 

of section 31.01. 

Under the board's construction of subsection (a), if no 

tax bill is ever mailed, then no delinquency date is ever 

established and no taxes could ever be collected on such 

property. But subsection (g) of section 31.01 provides that 

failure to send a tax bill does not affect the validity of a 

P- 6294 
Honorable Robert Hill Trapp - Page 6 (JM-1192) 

tax, penalty or interest, the due date, the existence of 

a tax lien or any procedure instituted to enforce the collection of a tax. Thus, the apparent conflict between the 

two provisions antedates the enactment of the amendment to 

subsection (e) of section 31.04. The apparent conflict that 

we must resolve involves statutes, the relevant portions of 

which were enacted during the same legislative session and 

were included in the same bill. Acts 1979, 66th beg., ch. 

841, § 1, at 2284-85. Therefore, reliance on the "later in 

time" principle of statutory construction is inappropriate. 

Second, even if we were to accept, arcuendo, the construction of section of 31.04 adopted by the board, such a 

construction cannot be reconciled with an amendment to 

section 33.04 of the code enacted by the same legislature 

that enacted the amendment to subsection (e) of section 

31.04. Section 33.04 of the code governs the notice of 

delinquency that must be delivered to delinquent taxpayers. 

The predecessor statute to section 33.04 of the code, 

article 7324, V.T.C.S., originally required a tax collector 

to notify every delinquent taxpayer listed on the tax rolls 

once every year. Subsection (a) of section 33.04, as 

originally enacted, imposed the same duty on tax collectors 

to notify delinquent taxpayers yearly, but also imposed at 

subsection (b) an additional duty on tax collectors of 

notifying in each year divisible by five every delinquent 

taxpayer who owes a tax that has been delinquent more than 

one year. 

Subsection (c) of section 33.04 originally provided 

that the tax collector had a duty to send a notice every 

five years, but only if the collector knew or, by exercising 

reasonable diligence, could determine the delinquent 

taxpayer's name and address. In the event that the 

collector could not determine the taxpayer's name and 

address, he was required to provide notice by publishing 

it in a newspaper. In 1985 section 33.04 was amended to 

provide, inter alia, that the reasonable diligence provisions regarding the tax collector's duty to provide the 

notice required every five years by subsection (b) were 

extended to the yearly notice required by subsection (a): 

(a) At least once each year the collector 

for a taxing unit shall deliver a notice of 

delinquency to each person whose name appears 

on the current delinquent tax roll. However, 

the notice need not be delivered if: 

(1) [Exception inapplicable]; 

P- 6295 
Honorable Robert Hill Trapp - Page 7 (JM-1192) 

(2) the collector does not know and by 

exercisina reasonable diliaence cannot 

determine the delinouent taxoaver's name and 

address. (Emphasis added.) 

Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 761, 5 1, at 2601. 

Thus, under the board's construction of section 31.04, 

a 1985 amendment to subsection (e) of that section acts to 

forbid the establishing of a delinquency date if no tax bill 

is ever mailed, even in an instance in which no bill can be 

sent because the address of the taxpayer is unknown. But a 

1985 amendment to section 33.04 provides that a tax 

collector has no duty to notify a delinquent taxpayer, 

except by newspaper notice, if the collector does not know 

and cannot determine, by exercising reasonable diligence, 

the delinquent taxpayer's name and address. 

In an instance in which conflicting statutes are 

enacted by the same session of the legislature, the latest 

expression of legislative intent prevails. Ex narte de 

Jesus de la 0,, 227 S.W.2d 212 (Tex. Crim. App. 1950); 

Attorney General Opinions JM-908 (1988); WW-139 (1980); 

H-115 (1973). In this instance, the date on which legislative action last occurred on each bill was the same, namely 

May 26, 1985. The Senate Journal indicates, however, that 

the house took action on the bill containing the amendment 

to section 33.04 later than it took action on the other 

bill. S.J. of Tex., 69th beg. 2040-41 (May 26, 1985). 

Therefore, if we were to construe section 31.04 to 

govern in instances in which no tax bill could be sent 

because the address of the taxpayer was unknown, then, 

invoking the same principle that the staff of the board 

invoked, we would perforce conclude that the amendment to 

section 33.04 effectively controlled the amendment to 

section 31.04, and that the board's construction of section 

31.04 was incorrect. However, we reject the board's 

construction of section 31.04, because we reject the 

presupposition upon which that construction was predicated, 

namely that the section was intended in the first instance 

to govern a situation in which a tax bill could not be sent 

because the address of a delinquent taxpayer was unknown. 

Two arguments support our construction. 

First, as we noted earlier, we are required to construe 

statutes in oari materia in such a way as to harmonize any 

conflicts, if such a construction is possible, because the 

repeal of a statute by implication is not favored. We 

construe section 31.04 to govern only in instances in which 

P. 6296 
Honorable Robert Hill Trapp - Page 8 (JM-1192) 

a tax bill can be sent, but is mailed late; it has no 

application in an instance in which no tax bill can sent 

because the name or address of the delinquent taxpayer is 

unknown. Our construction of section 31.04 harmonizes any 

apparent conflict with other statutory provisions and 

renders any further reliance on abstruse principles of 

statutory construction otiose. 

Second, we are required to construe 

visions in 

statutory prosuch a way that will not lead to absurd or 

ridiculous consequences. *, C'' . 

527 S.W.2d 175 (Tex. 1975); Maanolia Petro leum Co. v. 

Walker, 83 S.W.2d 929 (Tex. 1935). Section 33.41 of the 

code permits a taxing unit, at any time after a tax on 

property becomes delinquent, to file suit to foreclose a tax 

lien. As we noted earlier, if section 31.04 of the code 

were construed to reach situations in which no tax bill was 

sent because the address of the delinquent taxpayer was 

unknown, then the section would effectively prohibit the 

establishment of a delinquency date and no taxes could ever 

be collected on such property. We have found nothing in the 

code to indicate that the legislature intended such a 

result. 

Therefore, we conclude that section 31.04 of the Tax 

Code does not govern in instances in which no tax bill can 

be sent because the name or address of the taxpayer is 

unknown; it governs only in situations in which a tax bill 

can be mailed but is mailed late. In an instance in which 

no bill can be mailed because the address of the taxpayer is 

unknown, section 31.02 of the code, which provides that the 

delinquency date is February 1 of the year after the taxes 

are imposed, controls the establishment of a delinquency 

date. 

SUMMARY 

Section 31.04 of the Tax Code does not 

operate to forbid the establishment of the 

delinquency date and the imposition of 

penalties and interest on taxes due in a 

situation in which no tax bill is sent 

because the name or address of the delinquent 

taxpayer is unknown. Section 31.04 governs 

in instances in which tax bills can be 

mailed, but are mailed late. Subsection (a) 

of section 33.04 of the code specifically 

provides that the duty imposed on a tax 

collector to notify delinquent taxpayers does 

P. 6297 
Honorable Robert Hill Trapp - Page 9 (JM-1192) 

not apply where the collector does not know 

and, by exercising reasonable diligence, 

cannot determine the name or address of the 

delinquent taxpayer. In an instance in which 

no tax bill can be mailed because the address 

of the taxpayer is unknown, section 31.02 of 

the code, which provides that the delinquency 

date is February 1 of the year after the 

taxes are imposed, controls the establishment 

of a delinquency date. 

JIM MATTOX 

Attorney General of Texas 

MARY KELLER 

First Assistant Attorney General 

LOU MCCRRARY 

Executive Assistant Attorney General 

JUDGE ZOLLIE STEAKLEY 

Special Assistant Attorney General 

RRNEA HICKS 

Special Assistant Attorney General 

RICK GILPIN 

Chairman, Opinion Committee 

Prepared by Jim Moellinger 

Assistant Attorney General 

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