Turner v. Wade, Sheriff of Brooks County, Ga

Citations

• 254 U.S. 64

Syllabus

<p>The Georgia Tax Equalization Act (Laws, 1913, p. 123, §§ 6-7), empowers the Board of County Tax Assessors to assess property for taxation and requires it to notify the taxpayer of changes-made in his returns; it gives him, if dissatisfied, the right to demand an’arbitration, and provides that a majority of three arbitrators, one appointed by him, one by the Board and the third by the two so selected, shall fix the assessment; but the arbitrators must render their decision within ten days from the naming of the arbitrator by the Board, otherwise the Board’s decision — i. e., its assessment — stands affirmed; and no notice is afforded the taxpayer before the making of the Board’s assessment, nor any opportunity to be heard concerning it save that before the arbitrators. Held, that an assessment so made by the Board of County Tax Assessors, increasing the valuation returned by a property owner, without notice or hearing, was without due process of law, where his remedy by arbitration proved abortive because the arbitrators, though agreeing that the assessment was excessive, could no two of them unite on a new assessment before the ten day limitation expired. P. 70.</p> <p>147 Georgia, 666, reversed.</p>