Opinion ID: 1753810
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Effect of Tax Sales

Text: The trustees of the Monroe County Board of Education were the record owners of the subject property in 1878 by virtue of the 1867 deed from Sullivan. On March 4, 1878, the land was sold for delinquent taxes. If valid title were in the Board of Education, the subject property was exempt from taxation at that time. Mississippi Code Annotated § 1662 (1871). [1] We look to the Mississippi Laws of 1877 for a clue as to why this land was sold for taxes. In 1877, the legislature established the position of State Commissioner of Swamp Lands to remedy a general condition of confusion regarding swamp lands patented to the State under the Federal Swamp Land Act of 1850, 1877 Miss. Laws, Ch. 14. The legislature noted that it appears that the records of land sales now on file in the office of the Secretary of State are in an imperfect condition, showing repeated conflicting sales and selections, in many cases defaced, destroyed or lost... . Id., Ch. § 2. This would tend to explain the evidence in the instant case that ownership of the subject property from 1870-78 was unknown. The 1877 act authorized the Commissioner to sell and dispose of all unsold swamp land still retained by the State. Id., § 3. It was further provided that swamp lands sold by the Commissioner would become subject to taxation as other lands are taxed. Id., Ch. 15, § 1 (emphasis added). The emphasized portion does nothing to diminish the public lands exemption of § 1662, Code of 1871. Therefore, if anything is implied by the tax sale of the subject property in 1878 immediately after the passage of the swamp land reform legislation, it is that the State Commissioner or the Monroe County Tax Collector concluded that the subject property was in private, not public, hands. Determination of the effect of the 1878 tax sale on the validity of appellant's title raises a question of statutory construction. The validity of a tax sale is determined by the law in force at the time the sale was made. Beard v. Stanley, 218 Miss. 192, 67 So.2d 263 (1953). On March 4, 1878, tax sales were governed by § 1700, Code of 1871, as amended by Ch. 2 of the Laws of 1877. That statute provided that a tax sale vested in the purchaser a perfect title to the land sold for taxes, and no such conveyance or list as between the original parties or subsequent alienees shall be invalidated, nor shall any defence be available against the title thus conveyed in any court of this State, except by proof that the taxes for which said lands were sold had been paid or tendered to the proper officer before sale, or that the taxes were illegal in part, and that before sale the tax-payer tendered to the proper officer the amount of legal taxes due on said lands. 1877 Miss. Laws Ch. 2, § 10. The difficulty with this statute is in ascertaining what the legislature intended when it referred to tax sales illegal in part. The tax sale in the instant case was probably illegal in that it constituted a sale of lands exempted from taxation by § 1662, Code of 1871. But whether this is the sort of illegality contemplated by the 1877 statute is unclear. This same statute was amended by Ch. 6 of the Laws of 1880 and ultimately codified as § 525, Code of 1880. The amendment provided that to invalidate the title conveyed by a tax deed, there must be proof that  the land was not liable to sale for the taxes, or that the taxes for which the said land was sold, had been paid before sale; ... § 525, Code of 1880 (emphasis added). The emphasized portion, had it been in effect in 1878, would have undoubtedly invalidated the tax sale in question, as the subject property was clearly not liable to sale for the taxes. However, in a different and separate clause, the 1880 amendment goes on to restate the illegal in part language of its predecessor: and, if any part of the taxes for which such land was sold was illegal or not chargeable on said land, but part was chargeable, that shall not affect such sale, nor invalidate such conveyance, unless it shall appear that, before such sale, the amount legally chargeable on such land was paid, or tendered to the tax collector. § 525, Code of 1880 (emphasis added). This clause appears to explain that a tax sale illegal in part is one in which the property was overassessed and sold for taxes where the owner pays the tax on the proper assessment but fails to pay on the over-assessment. As the 1880 legislature added a new clause invalidating tax sales of exempt property, and at the same time and in a separate clause retained the illegal in part terminology of the earlier version, the logical conclusion is that the legislature viewed the new clause as independent of the original clause and consequently that the 1880 amendment created a new and additional exception not within the contemplation of the 1887 statute. We therefore conclude that the 1878 tax sale of 120 acres of the subject property vested in the purchaser perfect title thereto. [2]