Opinion ID: 2192862
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Clerk's Actions

Text: [¶ 11] In its decision addressing Fitzgerald's motion in limine, the court held that [t]he dispensing of information regarding taxes due and the accepting of tax payments by a collections clerk working for the City of Bangor are two duties that serve to further the City's aim of collecting taxes. We agree. The entire process of collecting taxes, from valuation and assessment of property to the provision of information regarding amounts due and the acceptance of the funds for payment are part of a unitary process intended to assure that the government is carrying out its paramount function [of taxation] by which it is enabled to exist and function at all. Maine School Admin. Dist. No. 15 v. Raynolds, 413 A.2d 523, 533 (Me. 1980). Fitzgerald argues that, by giving him accounting information and taking his money, the clerk was not exercising the City's authority to tax but was simply performing the clerical task of receiving funds on behalf of the City. [¶ 12] In this context, however, there is no principled basis for recognizing a distinction between the actions of a clerical worker responsible for providing information relative to the collection of taxes and the actions of an administrator or official responsible for making discretionary decisions concerning the government's tax power. The dissemination of information and receipt of funds are actions as integral to the collection of taxes as are the actions that result in the assessment of the taxes. [¶ 13] The rationale for the rule precluding the assertion of estoppel against the government in tax cases is to assure that no officer of government has the ability to interfere inadvertently with the government's fundamental sovereign power to tax its citizens. See A.H. Benoit & Co. v. Johnson, 160 Me. 201, 207-10, 202 A.2d 1 (1964). This rationale should logically apply to the clerk who supplied Fitzgerald with incorrect information. The foreclosure of a tax lien is a procedure governed by statute, see 36 M.R.S.A. § 943 (1990 & Supp.1998), which cannot be rescinded because of the misstatements of a government employee to the taxpayer. See Flower v. Town of Phippsburg, 644 A.2d 1031, 1031 (Me.1994). We therefore decline to treat the more clerical aspects of the government's taxation activities as distinct from its other taxation activities for purposes of examining the taxpayer's ability to assert a defense of equitable estoppel against the government.