City of Austin v. Austin Gas Light & Coal Co.

Citations

• 69 Tex. 180
• 7 S.W. 200
• 1887 Tex. LEXIS 803

Syllabus

<p>1. Taxation. — When a power is conferred on a city by the Legislature to levy and collect taxes for designated objects, and no express power is-conferred to exempt any specific property within the city which ¡the city is authorized to tax, from taxation, a contract between the city government and the owner of such specific property to exempt it from taxation. is void.</p> <p>2. Same. — The requirement of the State Constitution that all property in-the State shall be taxed in proportion to its value, and that taxes shall, be equal and uniform, controls municipal as well as State taxation.- The assumption by a city council of the power to exempt property from tax- • ation is ultra ñires, and violative of the Constituían.</p> <p>8. Same. — The power to commute taxes is but an incident of the power to exempt. When tbe power to exempt does not exist, the power to commute can not be exercised.</p> <p>4. Taxation — Statute Construed. — After the city of Austin had assumed-control of its public free schools, its voting inhabitants determined by vote that a tax of two mills on the dollar should be levied for the support of such schools. Afterwards, in 1883, a majority of the voters voted-in favor of a proposition to levy “a special additional annual tax of one and one-third mills upon the dollar, upon all property made taxable by law in the city of Austin for public free school purposes within the limits of the city.” The statute provided that when such an election is held “ the proposition submitted may be for a tax not exceeding one-half of one per cent, or it may be for a specific per cent.” Held: That the proposition submitted at the election of 1883 was,- within the spirit of the statute, a proposition to authorize the levy and collection of a “specific per cent.”</p> <p>.5. Constitution Construed. — The leading purpose of the act of March 26» 1881, was to empower towns and cities, however incorporated, to levy and collect a tax for the maintenance of the public free