Workingmen's Banking Co. v. Wolff

Citations

• 150 Ill. 491
• 37 N.E. 930

Syllabus

<p>1. Taxation — county board — reviewing, reducing or increasing the ■assessment. Under section 86 of the Revenue law, as amended in 1891, the power of the county board to review and reduce assessments on complaint of individual property owners, so far as it applies to assessments made prior to the fourth Monday of June, is purely apx>ellate, and can arise only when an appeal has been taken in the manner prescribed by the amendatory act. Any attempt by the county board to reduce an assessment made prior to the fourth Monday of June, except on appeal from the town board of review, is without legal authority, and inoperative and void.</p> <p>2. Where the county board attempts to reduce assessments on complaints presented- to it in the first instance, and not on appeal from the township board of review, its action will be ineffectual, and such attempted reduction will not authorize an addition to the assessment of the personal property of a town to make up the alleged deficiency caused by such attempted reduction.</p> <p>3. While a county board may equalize assessments, it has no power to raise or reduce the assessment above or below the amount returned by the assessors, and if the aggregate assessment is raised above that amount, the collection of the increased taxes on such assessment may be enjoined in a court of equity.</p> <p>4. If a county board acts illegally in changing assessments, its action will not vitiate or change the legal acts of the assessors of the towns, and until legally changed or vacated, the assessments are binding on the tax-payers.</p> <p>5. Same — county board — jurisdiction prior to 1891. As tire Kevenue law stood prior to the amendment of June 17, 3891, county boards, in counties under township organization, had no appellate jurisdiction over the action of township boards of review, and no original jurisdiction to hear complaints of persons aggrieved by the assessment of their property, except in case of property assessed after the first Mo