Court Opinion

ID: 7815050
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:33:01.270973+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:28:36.442913
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING. George Rose Smith, J. In a petition for rehearing the appellants contend that with respect to one forty-acre tract the tax sale was for an amount that was excessive by more than a cent. The taxes upon this tract came to $4.3722, which the clerk rounded off as $4.38. When the taxes were not paid the 10% penalty was entered in even figures as 44 cents, making a combined tax and penalty of $4.82. It is now insisted that this charge was fatally excessive, because a tax of $4.3722 plus a penalty of $.43722 would be only $4.80942. This argument is not sound. The computation of the tax and the computation of the penalty took place several months apart. Under the cases cited in the original opinion it was permissible in each instance for the clerk to round off the fractional amount in even cents, since the difference was less than the smallest coin in our monetary system. Two rights do not make a wrong. It would be manifestly impractical to require the clerk, before entering the penalty in round figures, to recompute the original tax to be certain that the two trivial fractional amounts did not together exceed a penny. Rehearing denied.