Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

46 Ga. 412

Stokes v. State

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided July 15, 1872

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1872-07-15

<p>1. A sale of the land by the assignee of a bankrupt does not divest the lien of the State upon the land for taxes due on it, even though sold by the assignee, free of encumbrance.</p> <p>2. An execution issued by the tax collector for the unpaijl taxes against the land, which has not been returned by any one, describing it as the property of the persons who last returned it, is valid against the land, although such persons may no longer be the owners of it, and may not have owned it at the time the law fixes the liability for taxes, to-wit: the first day of April.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“If it is true that the property is bound for the taxes, it makes very little difference who the owner of that property is, or how a tax execution describes it, so it is done with sufficient definiteness to enable the levying officer to ascertain the property.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including West v. Fulton County

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1872-07-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently January 1997

1 district · 14 state decisions

701872188018901900191019201930194019501960197019801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Montgomery, Judge.

¶11. It has been said by a Judge of a United States Court that, “the power of taxation is a sovereign political power, and a branch of the power of eminent domain Brightley’s Fed. D., 158. Georgia expressly retains this power over all property in the State, and follows the property for the payment of her taxes, in whosesoever hands found. The taxpayer cannot dispose of his property so as to divest her of this right: Code, 809, 810, 811. The bankrupt law does not attempt to deprive a State of this power. True, it makes provision for the payment of the State taxes, if the State choose to come into the Bankrupt Court and claim them, but she cannot be compelled to come in. Hence, the assignee, by sale of a bankrupt’s property, cannot divest the right of the State to enforce the payment of her taxes on the property, wherever it may be found.

¶22. If it is true that the property is bound for the taxes, it makes very little difference who the owner of that property is, or how a tax execution describes it, so it is done with sufficient definiteness to enable the levying officer to ascertain the property.

¶3Judgment affirmed.

/46/ga/412 · .json · Public domain