Dandelet v. Smith/Opinion of the Court

Mr. Justice BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the court.

The question in this case is whether the assessment for alleged deficiencies was or was not illegal.

1. It is contended by the plaintiff in error that the assessment is void upon its face, because not made month by month so as to indicate the deficiency for each month, and to make the reassessment coincide in time with the monthly returns of the plaintiff. It is sufficient to say that the law does not require this to be done. All that the statute requires is a list of the names of parties whose returns have been deficient, with the amounts for which they are liable over and above the amount for which they may have been assessed upon any return or returns. This language does not, by its terms, require a separate specification of deficiency for each defective return. 'The amount for which a person has been assessed upon any return or returns,' may be an aggregate of many sums; and it is the deficiency of this amount which is to be reassessed. It may frequently happen that the assessor could not possibly tell in what particular month the deficiencies occurred, and yet he may have demonstrative evidence of the deficiency of the aggregate amount returned.

2. It is contended that, by the act, the assessor could only go back fifteen months. We do not so understand it. The language is: 'The said assessor may, from time to time, or at any time within fifteen months from the time of the passage of this act, or from the time of the delivery of the list to the collector as aforesaid, enter in any monthly or special list the names,' &c. The first limitation, 'within fifteen months from the time of the passage of this act,' evidently relates to past deficiencies; the others to future. The reassessment in this case was made within fifteen months after the passage of the act, and the assessor was justified in reviewing the past returns as he did.

3. It is lastly objected, that the law in question, namely, the twentieth section of the Internal Revenue Act of June 30th, 1864, as amended by the ninth section of the act of July 13th, 1866, does not refer at all to the tax assessed upon brewers, inasmuch as they were required, by the same act of 1866, to use stamps, instead of making monthly returns, from and after the 1st of September, 1866; whereas, the amended twentieth section authorizing a reassessment, only applied, by its terms, to defective 'returns.' The language refers to past as well as future returns; and, therefore, expressly covers all returns made prior to September 1st, 1866. The reassessment in this case is for deficiency from September 1st, 1862, to April 20th, 1867, namely: prior to March 1st, 1863, 522 barrels; thence to April 1st, 1864, 922 barrels; thence to July 1st, 1864, 216 barrels; thence to April 20th, 1867, 1425 barrels. It is only the last period which embraces a portion of time in which stamps were used. But it embraced twenty-six months during which assessments were made upon monthly returns, and non constat, but that the deficiency of 1425 barrels arose in that time. The reassessment does not show that any portion of that deficiency arose after September 1st, 1866.

But suppose that a portion of it did arise after that time, when stamps were required to be used. The brewer may have made more beer than he stamped, and by the fifth section of the act of March 2d, 1867, it is enacted that 'if the manufacturer of any article upon which a tax is required to be paid by means of a stamp, shall have sold or removed for sale any such articles, without the use of the proper stamp, in addition to the penalties. . . imposed,. . . it shall be the duty of the assessor,. . . upon such information as he can obtain, to estimate the amount of the tax which has been omitted to be paid, and to make an assessment therefor, and certify the same to the collector; and the subsequent proceedings for collection shall be in all respects like those for the collection of taxes upon manufactures and productions.'

Now, in what more proper form could the assessor make a certificate of 'the amount of the tax which has been omitted to be paid,' than he did in this case? If a more proper form could be devised, still is not the form used by the assessor in this case admissible?

The exact truth always lies in the knowledge of the manufacturer. His books show, or ought to show, everything that he has produced, and in an investigation of this kind, if he shows that his returns or stamps fully equal the amount of his production and sale, the burden will then be on the government to show a deficiency. The form of the assessment adopted in this case can neither mislead nor embarrass an honest manufacturer who has kept true and exact books of account.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.