Court Opinion

ID: 9562034
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:20:39.849714+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:11.160439
License: Public Domain

Felton, Justice,
dissenting. Denominating my dissent as strenuous, or emphatic or the use of even stronger language will add nothing to this dissent, but, if such denomination will call attention to the egregious error of the majority in this case it will have been worthwhile. In my opinion, the majority’s conclusion has no reasonable, logical, factual or other sound basis.
The complaint in this case alleges in part: “4. Petitioners show that under the provisions of Article 7, Section 1, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution of the State of Georgia all tangible property is required to be uniformly assessed at its actual value. 5. Notwithstanding this provision of the Constitution of the State of Georgia, the government defendants have adopted a system of arbitrarily assessing for tax purposes and have established categories of tangible property at different arbitrary rates, none of which are uniform as contemplated by the Constitution. 6. By way of example, apartment houses are assessed on a market value of six times approximately 90% of the gross receipts; machinery and equipment utilized in mercantile establishments is assessed on a declining percentage basis of actual cost, commencing at 40% for the first year and declining thereafter. Inventories and goods held by mercantile establishments are assessed at 40% of their actual cost price. Dwelling houses are assessed at an arbitrary percentage of an arbitrary market value. Household furniture, fixtures and other household personal possessions are taxed at 10% of the assessed value of the dwelling. 7. None of the above formulae bear any reasonable relationship to the actual value of the property and as a result of their utilization, owners of tangible personal property are not uniformly assessed as to value with the result that the burden of taxation is not uniformly borne as contemplated by the Constitution of the State of Georgia. 8. Petitioners show that they have received tax bills from government defendants, said bills all being predicated upon the above-described arbitrary tax formulae. 9. Petitioners show that these tax *478bills are required by law to be paid commencing August 15 of this year, 1969. 10. Petitioners show that the defendant lenders hold deeds to secure debts on the various properties as indicated in the tabulation in Paragraph 2 herein and that these deeds require petitioners either to keep payments of taxes current or to deposit in escrow with said defendant lenders the moneys for the payment of the taxes. 11. Petitioners show that under the laws of the State of Georgia ad valorem taxes may not be paid under protest, nor is there any provision for the refund of illegally collected ad valorem taxes. 12. Petitioners show that unless a court of equity intervenes, the defendant lenders will either pay the taxes out of escrow funds or call petitioners’ loans. Petitioners show that the payment of the taxes out of the escrow funds will defeat the petitioners’ rights to contest the legality of the system of assessment and that consequently petitioners have no adequate remedy at law.”
There is no way under high heaven, even with the inventions in modern technology, for these taxpayers to rationally or otherwise determine, in good conscience, how much the taxes would be on complainants’ properties if the properties of all the taxpayers involved in the particular governmental division of the State were comtitidionally assessed. If the property values are stated or computed properly by the taxpayers, they still would not know the millage to be used because the assessed value of the total value of property to be taxed in the subdivision is not known. I cannot agree that equity requires the complainants here to do a thing that is impossible, i.e., to conjure up the proper value for taxation of all the properties involved and to apply a millage which would produce the amount of money needed by the particular subdivisions and then figure how much was constitutionally due on the properties of complainants. The answer cannot be that complainants know the market value of their properties. One known figure in tax equation equals an unknown amount a taxpayer should be required to tender as taxes admitted 'to be due. Tender in a case involving an excessive tax gives rise to entirely different rationale.
The foregoing position is sustained by the case of Norwood v. Baker, 172 U. S. 269 (19 SC 187, 43. LE 443), which states, *479on page 293, as follows: “It is held, however, that the general rule requiring payment or tender of the amount actually due as a condition to equitable relief against the illegal portion of the tax, has no application to a case where the entire tax fails by reason of an illegal assessment. And in such case an injunction is proper without payment or tender of any portion of the tax, since it is impossible for the court to determine what portion is actually due, there being no valid or legal tax assessed.
“The present case is not one in which — as in most of the cases brought to enjoin the collection of taxes or the enforcement of special assessments — it can be plainly or clearly seen, from the showing made by the pleadings, that a particular amount, if no more, is due from the plaintiff, and which amount should be paid or tendered before equity would interfere. It is rather a case in which the entire assessment is illegal. In such a case it is not necessary to tender, as a condition of relief being granted to the plaintiff, any sum as representing what she supposed, or might guess, or was willing to concede, was the excess of cost over any benefits accruing to the property. She was entitled, without making such a tender, to ask a court of equity to enjoin the enforcement of a rule of assessment that infringed upon her constitutional rights.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The above rule is generally followed throughout the United States: “An averment of payment or tender is not necessary, however, when the allegations of the bill show that all the taxes assailed are void and inequitable, or that the void and inequitable part is so inextricably mingled with the part justly due that the two cannot be approximately separated. . .” 84 CJS 1434, Taxation, § 728 (d 1). (Emphasis supplied.)
I think that the majority requires an impossible act on the part of the taxpayers in this case — to conscientiously compute what their taxes would amount to if the properties in the subdivisions had been constitutionally assessed for taxation. The total assessed value is unknown and the millage is unknown. A tender in such a case would only be a wild guess dressed up in an effort to meet an impossible and inapplicable equity rule.