Des Moines Elevator Co. v. Greenwalt

3 N.W.2d 150, 231 Iowa 1062
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedApril 7, 1942
DocketNo. 45841.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 3 N.W.2d 150 (Des Moines Elevator Co. v. Greenwalt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Des Moines Elevator Co. v. Greenwalt, 3 N.W.2d 150, 231 Iowa 1062 (iowa 1942).

Opinion

Wennkrstrtjm, J.

The plaintiff sought to obtain a permanent injunction against the defendants and thereby prevent them from selling certain real estate belonging to plaintiff for claimed delinquent taxes. The taxes were, in fact, additional taxes claimed to be due and payable for the years 1937 and 1938. These taxes were sought to be collected by reason of the changed valuation of the plaintiff's property as the result of litigation to which reference will be hereinafter made. The plaintiff claimed that the taxes were illegally sought to be collected and did not constitute a lien on its property. The defendants, by way of defense, asserted that the additional tax by reason of the increased valuation for the years 1937 and 1938 was valid and legal and constituted a lien against the plaintiff’s property. The trial court dismissed plaintiff’s case on its merits, dissolved the temporary injunction which had been issued at the time of the tiling of the plaintiff's suit, and denied the permanent injunction. The plaintiff has appealed.

The record in this ease was submitted to the trial court upon an agreed stipulation of facts. They are briefly summarized as follows:

In the year 1937 an assessment in the cily of Des Moines, Towa, was made as required by law. The city council of Des Moines, sitting as a board of review, completed and revised the assessments ma.de by the assessor, and the completed assessments were certified to the county auditor of Polk county. Thereafter the Iowa State Tax Commission, then known as the State Board of Assessment and Review, by reason of proceedings brought before it, gave consideration to the assessments in the entire city of Des Moines, and issued an order directing the local board of review to lower assessments in certain taxing districts of Dos Moines and to raise the assessments in other districts.

The order of the state hoard of assessment and review provided that the assessments in the district in which the plain *1064 tiff’s property is located should be raised. The local board of review refused to comply with the order of the state board of assessment and review and thereafter the state board brought an action asking for a writ of mandamus directed to the local board of review requiring it to comply with the order of the state board. On December 21, 1937, the district court of Polk county, Iowa, entered a decree denying the relief sought by the state board. On December 31, 1937, the county auditor of Polk county, certified to the Treasurer the tax books for the taxes due for the year 1937, which were due and payable in 1938. Plaintiff, during the year 1938, paid the taxes then shown by the treasurer’s books of Polk county to be due from it and received a receipt which showed full payment of the taxes due.

On December 31, 1938, the county auditor again certified to the county treasurer of Polk county the tax books for the year 1938. This plaintiff paid the taxes for the year 1938, which were due and payable in 1939, as shown by the treasurer’s books to be due from it, and received the treasurer’s receipt showing full payment of the taxes then due.

The mandamus action brought by the state board of assessment and review, resulted in a denial of the writ in the trial court and an appeal was perfected. In an opinion filed December 30, 1938, in the case of State ex rel. Iowa State Board v. Local Board of Review, 225 Iowa 855, 283 N. W. 87, the holding of the Polk county district court was reversed and that court was directed to issue the writ of mandamus prayed for by the state board. On July 6, 1939, the district court of Polk county, in compliance with the ruling of this court in the State Board case, directed the issuance of the writ of mandamus to the local board of review of the city of Des Moines and required it to comply with the order of the state board of assessment and review made in 1937. The local board of review, in complying with the writ of mandamus issued by the district court of Polk county, reconvened for the year 1937, and in compliance with the original order of the state board raised the assessed value of the property in the district in which plaintiff’s property is located and thereafter certified the change to the county auditor of Polk county, Iowa. For a more detailed comment as to the *1065 1937 assessment in Des Moines, reference is made to1 the case of State ex rel. Iowa State Board v. Local Board of Review, supra.

By reason of the change of valuation as it affected plaintiff’s property, the county auditor certified to the county treasurer of Polk county, Iowa, certain additional taxes for the years 1937 and 1938. An additional tax for the year 1937, in the amount of $749.35, was placed upon the treasurer’s books by the county auditor on March 6, 1940, as was also an additional tax for the year 1938 in the amount of $796.56 on March 18, 1940. These last-named amounts were the additional taxes levied against plaintiff’s property. The injunction suit, to which reference has heretofore been made, was brought by plaintiff, who sought to enjoin the collection of additional taxes levied for the years 1937 and .1938.

It is the contention of the plaintiff in this action that, after the tax list has been delivered by the county auditor to the county treasurer, and the taxes as shown thereon have been paid by the taxpayer and a receipt issued, neither the state tax commission nor the county auditor may correct any claimed error and seek collection and payment of additional taxes to the detriment of the taxpayer.

A situation like the one now before us has not heretofore been presented to this court, but a county auditor’s efforts to levy assessments by reason of claimed omitted property have heretofore received our attention,, and it is our judgment that the reasoning and comments made in cases relative to the effort to levy a tax by reason of omitted property are applicable in the present case.

In the case of First Nat. Bk. v. Hayes, 186 Iowa 892, 896, 171 N. W. 715, 716, the question involved the efforts of the county auditor to correct an error in the assessment of certain bank stock. We there said:

“The error in the assessment or tax list is one relating to perfecting the tax list in the course of preparation or thereafter, at any time prior to the payment of taxes levied. Retroactive authority is not expressly conferred on the auditor, and there is no good reason for saying that, after the tax lists have been perfected by the officers, in so far as they know, and accepted by the property owner in discharging the burden im *1066 posed, the auditor may go ‘back of the returns’ and, by the correction of errors thereafter discovered, exact payment of additional sums as taxes which neither the public nor the taxpayer knew of, or might reasonably have anticipated. There ought to be a time beyond which even an error in name, description, or valuation may not be corrected to the detriment of the taxpayer, and that time is when the proceedings relating to assessment, listing and collection of the tax, always construed ad mvitvm, have been consummated by full payment of the amount exacted by the records as they then exist.”

In a further ease involving the correction of an error in the assessment or tax list by the county auditor, we said, in the ease of the First Nat. Bk. v. Anderson, 196 Iowa 587, 594, 192 N. W.

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Bluebook (online)
3 N.W.2d 150, 231 Iowa 1062, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/des-moines-elevator-co-v-greenwalt-iowa-1942.