Wabash Railway v. People

Citations

• 138 Ill. 316
• 28 N.E. 57
• 1891 Ill. LEXIS 1134

Syllabus

<p>1. District road tax—how collected—duty of overseer of highways and supervisor. If the district road tax shall not be collected pursuant to law, the overseer of highways is required to make return of that fact to the supervisor of his town, in the manner required by section 110 of the Eoad act; and the supervisor is, by section 116 of that act, to receive such returns and lay the same before the board of supervisors, and by section 117 it is made the duty of that board to cause the amount shown to be in arrears or unpaid, to be levied on the lands returned, and to be collected as other taxes.</p> <p>2. The power by the statute vested in the board of supervisors is supervisory, only. If the returns are in conformity with the law, the board has no discretion whatever to exercise. The board is not required to exercise any power of taxation, or to invest any officers or body with such power, but merely to cause the proper officers to exercise a power already possessed by them. If those officers discharge their duties there is no need for any affirmative action by such board.</p> <p>3. The requirement in section 110 of the Eoad act, that “every overseer of highways shall deliver to the supervisor of his town * * * the lists furnished by the commissioners of highways, containing the land and persona] road tax, with an affidavit thereto,” is clearly to furnish evidence of the fact of delinquency. But this is not jurisdictional.</p> <p>4. Same—jurisdiction to extend. The jurisdictional facts are the levy of the tax by the commissioners, and the failure to pay it by the person lawfully charged. The defaulting tax-payer is not interested in the affidavit. He may show that the tax has, in fact, been paid. If he does not do so, it does not concern him that the proper authorities have acted on less or different evidence. The failure to make such affidavit does not affect the substantial justice of the tax itself.</p> <p>5. It is not indispensable to the authority of the count