People Ex Rel. Toman v. Sage

31 N.E.2d 791, 375 Ill. 411
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 16, 1940
DocketNo. 25898. Reversed in part and affirmed in part.
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 31 N.E.2d 791 (People Ex Rel. Toman v. Sage) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People Ex Rel. Toman v. Sage, 31 N.E.2d 791, 375 Ill. 411 (Ill. 1940).

Opinions

Mr. ChiEE Justice Gunn

delivered the opinion of the court :

Objections by appellee Sage were sustained to items described as “forfeitures” and “abatements” in the year 1937 appropriation ordinance for the corporate fund of the city of Chicago; the library fund for the city of Chicago; the library building fund for the city of Chicago, and the municipal tuberculosis sanitarium fund for the city of Chicago in the total amount of $2,092,677.56. Objections were also sustained to an appropriation for the street and alley cleaning division of the bureau of streets of the city of Chicago in the amount of $1,600,000 because the appropriation was not itemized as required by law. The revenue is involved, authorizing a direct appeal to this court.

The form of appropriation in the ordinance for corporate purposes of the city of Chicago is as follows:

Surplus appropriable for year 1937................$ 56,871.94
Revenue of year 1937 — appropriable:
Tax levy of year 1937.......... 37,000,000.00
Other revenue, as listed below... $18,960,000.00 Less reserves................. 3,700,000.00
(a) Estimated amount to cover loss and cost of collecting
1937 taxes .......$1,713,000
(b) Estimated amount of 1937 taxes for non-payment of which real estate
will be forfeited... 1,850,000
(c) Estimated amount of 1937 taxes which
will be abated..... 136,900
Net other revenue...................$15,260,000.00
Total for year 1937..............................$52,3x6,871.94

This form of appropriation is similar to that used for the other items under consideration. The particular items objected to in the appropriation ordinance are the items “b” and “c,” being respectively for estimated amount of 1937 taxes for non-payment of which “real estate will be forfeited,” and an item for which taxes will be “abated.” At the time the appropriation levy was adopted the statute provided that within the first quarter of each fiscal year an ordinance termed “an annual appropriation bill” should be adopted, appropriating all of the sums deemed necessary to defray the expenses and liabilities of the corporation to be paid or incurred during the fiscal year. It required the ordinance should set forth estimates by classes of all current assets and liabilities of each fund as of the beginning of the fiscal year, and the amount of such assets available for appropriation in such year. With respect to such items the statute provided: “Estimates of taxes to be received from the levies of prior years shall be. net filter deducting amounts estimated to be sufficient to cover the loss and cost of collecting such taxes, and also the amount of such taxes for the non-payment of which real estate has been or shall be forfeited to the State, and abatements in the amount of such taxes extended or to be extended upon the collector’s books,” etc. (State Bar Stat. 1935, chap. 24, par. 93.) The law also provided for an estimate of liabilities, and a detailed estimate of all taxes to be levied for such year, and of all other current revenues to be derived from sources other than taxes, which will be applicable to be expenditures or charges to be made or incurred during such year. Paragraph 93, supra, also details the manner in which such appropriations be made for the several expenditures or charges, and after enumeration provides: “(e) An amount or amounts estimated to be sufficient to cover the loss and cost of collecting taxes to be levied for such fiscal year, and also the amounts of taxes so levied for the non-payment of which real estate shall be forfeited to the State, and abatements in the amounts of such taxes as extended upon the collector’s books.”

It is claimed that the provision authorizing the appropriation for the estimated amount of real estate forfeitures and abatements is void as a violation of the constitution. The objection in this case goes to the appropriation ordinance required preliminary to the levy of taxes, for the purposes set out in such ordinance. The appropriation in this case follows the form specified by the statute.

No decision has been called to our attention in which appropriations for the estimated amount of real estate forfeitures or abatements have been specified separately, and unless the provision of the statute is in violation of the constitution the appropriation ordinance is in proper form. Appellee calls our attention to People v. Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Co. 361 Ill. 248, and People v. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Co. 354 id. 438. In each of these cases the appropriation and levy was for loss and cost. A separate appropriation for forfeitures or abatements was not made. In People v. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Co. supra, we held that estimates for “real estate forfeited,” “judgments refused,” and “appeal pending” were not included within the term loss and cost, as they each represented entirely different reasons why taxes were not available. In the same case it was also held that uncollected personal property tax could not be included within the term loss and cost where no bona fide effort was shown to collect such personal property taxes. The holding in People v. Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Co. supra, was the same, and there, also, the appropriation was for “loss and cost.” Neither of these cases passed upon the effect of making an appropriation for forfeitures or abatements as authorized and directed by statute under a separate designation.

Appellees claim, however, that the Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Co. case, supra, held that the constitutional guaranty of equality of taxation would be violated by making an appropriation for forfeitures or abatements. The comment in that case was not directed to this subject matter, but was said with respect to an utter failure to make an effort to collect personal property tax in a sum aggregating almost $4,000,000. It was a notable lack of diligence in the collection of taxes about which the language in that case was used, and not the fact of estimating real estate forfeitures as a part of loss and cost. These two cases involved the taxes of 1929 and 1931, at which time there was no provision in the statute with respect to appropriating for real estate forfeitures. Ill. Rev. Stat. 1931, chap. 24, par. 102.

The case0 of People v. Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad Co. 365 Ill. 443, has no application to the effect of the appropriation statute under consideration, as the levy involved was made in a county of less than 135,000 people. It does, however, adhere to the former holdings that “loss and cost,” as an item for appropriation, does not include such items as “judgments refused” and “real estate forfeitures.”

Appellant calls our attention to People v. Diversey Hotel Corp. 364 Ill. 298, which involved the city of Chicago taxes for the year 1933, and People v. Schweitzer, 366 Ill.

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31 N.E.2d 791, 375 Ill. 411, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-ex-rel-toman-v-sage-ill-1940.