State Line & Sullivan R. R.'s Taxation

Citations

• 264 Pa. 489
• 107 A. 860
• 1919 Pa. LEXIS 683

Syllabus

<p>Taxation — Goal lands — Appraisement—Foot acres standard — Act of April 19,1889, P.L.S7.</p> <p>1. While the foot acre is not the usual standard employed in arriving at the value of lands for the purpose of assessment, it will be accepted where the parties have agreed to it, or do not object to its use.</p> <p>2. The parties on appeal from a tax assessment of coal lands by the board of revision, are not bound to adopt the method used by the board; any fair reasonable basis will be sufficient, if the result enlightens the court as to the value required by law.</p> <p>3. The board of revision must inquire whether the assessment has been made according to law, and the property to be valued has been so valued at a price or sum not less than it would bring at a public sale after due notice. If the board omits by mistake a part of the acreage, the court of common pleas, on appeal, has jurisdiction under the Act of April 19, 1889, P. L. 37, to add the omitted acreage. In such a case the amount is increased, but not the value.</p> <p>4. It is not the policy of the law to permit persons to escape taxation through an omission by the assessor to place a property in assessment. That such result may not be accomplished, courts will give a liberal construction to those acts which tend to an equalization of the burden of taxation.</p> <p>5. In making the assessment the taxing authorities may consider what has been the average yearly output of coal for several years preceding, the total amount of coal originally contained in the tract, what remains unmined at the time of the assessment, the amount of the royalties, if the property is under lease, and the number of years it will probably take to exhaust the coal. If it appears that the owners are carrying away coal which is free from taxation at the rate of thirty-two acres per year, they have nothing of which to complain.</p>