Opinion ID: 2341641
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: settlements for the years 1-31-63 and 1-31-64

Text: Both taxes for these fical years were settled August 25, 1966, a delay of one year and nine months in the former instance and a little over a year in the latter. [One year after the actual filing date was November 18, 1964 for the 1963 tax and August 18, 1965 for the 1964 levy.] Once again the Commonwealth waited to begin work on these reports until the resettlements for the first five tax years on appeal were completed on May 10, 1966. The lower court simply held that late settlement had not been justified by the Commonwealth since no action of any sort was taken during the statutory period. For the reasons previously discussed we reiterate our rejection of the procedures employed by the Department of Revenue. Their net effect was to erode the vitality of the legislative time scheme and to destroy the desirable certainty in tax administration. Having disposed of the primary issue, we move to the other points. It is the Commonwealth's contention that the trial judge erred in refusing to affirm eighteen of twenty-three requests for findings of fact since all were supported by the evidence contained in either the stipulation of facts or in the oral testimony. Failure to indicate why such requests were denied is urged to be a violation of our holding in Commonwealth v. General Foods Corporation, 429 Pa. 266, 239 A. 2d 359 (1968). [8] It is our view that the court's refusal was not in error since it accepted the facts as stipulated and therefore needn't have accepted them as rephrased by appellant. Two of the submitted findings, Nos. 22 and 23, came from the additional testimony which appellant chose to present. The difficulty with this testimony was its relevance; the witness, Rodgers, had not worked on the Wanamaker reports and could not testify as to them specifically. Instead what was presented was a brief narrative of why in general the Commonwealth finds it necessary to pair. While it would have been better for the court to elucidate its refusal, it is certainly not reversible error. The argument is also made that the courts have improperly resorted to judicial legislation in declaring that untimely settlements are void and that in such instances the tax report is to be treated as a settlement since the statutes here involved contain no such provisions. This Court has uniformly held the sanction of nullification to be the effect of late settlement in the Allied Building Credits, Safe Harbor and Western Maryland cases. Not only is this construction permissible but in point of fact it rescues these statutes from total irrelevance. It is a primary canon of construction that statutes must be construed in such a way as to effectuate the legislative purpose and policy. Had these statutes been interpreted in any other manner the Department of Revenue could flout them at will reducing the legislative efforts to a series of vain acts. The Commonwealth's interpretation renders the provisions for settlement, resettlement and maintenance of records a mere form of words and we decline to accept it. In this connection it remains only to be pointed out that the legislature only last year amended the settlement provisions to provide a two-year period within which the department may now validly act on such reports. They did not see fit to provide that an attempted settlement which did not meet the requirements of the new section would nonetheless be valid. It is well settled that the failure of the legislature, subsequent to a decision of this Court in construction of a statute, to change by legislative action the law as interpreted by this Court creates a presumption that our interpretation was in accord with the legislative intendment. Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board v. Uniontown Hospital Assn., 432 Pa. 146, 149-50, 247 A. 2d 621 (1968). The Commonwealth's final argument is that the issue of timeliness of settlement for the first five years on appeal was not properly raised. Section 1104 of The Fiscal Code, 72 P.S. § 1104 which pertains to appeals like the instant case, provides in relevant part: Appeals taken hereunder shall be hearings de novo, and no questions shall be raised by the appellant that were not brought to the attention of the department making the settlement, or in the application for resettlement, or petition for review prior to the appeal, and set forth in the specification of objections contained in the affidavit accompanying the appeal, unless the court shall be satisfied that the appellant was unable, by the exercise of reasonable diligence, to have raised such questions before the department making the settlement and the Board of Finance and Revenue, and no questions shall be raised which are not included in the specification of objections filed as hereinbefore provided. [Emphasis supplied.] Wanamakers raised the issue of timeliness as to these first five years in its petition for review. The Commonwealth contends that the use of the double negative in this provision [§ 1104] implies that a question cannot be raised on appeal if it was not raised in all three situations specified. [9] This argument attributes unintended ingenuity to the legislature. If the lawmakers desired to have the taxpayer preserve his points for appeal by presenting them at three different times they could have easily provided so without forcing the courts to substitute and for or. Judgments affirmed.