Page:Tyler v. Hennepin County.pdf/12

Rh Maine amended its law a decade later to permit the former owner to recover the surplus. 1848 Me. Laws p. 56, §4. And Mississippi’s highest court promptly struck down its law for violating the Due Process and Takings Clauses of the Mississippi Constitution. See Griffin v. Mixon, 38 Miss. 424, 439, 451–452 (Ct. Err. & App. 1860). Louisiana’s statute remained on the books, but the County cites no case showing that the statute was actually enforced against a taxpayer to take his entire property.

The minority rule then remains the minority rule today: Thirty-six States and the Federal Government require that the excess value be returned to the taxpayer.

Our precedents have also recognized the principle that a taxpayer is entitled to the surplus in excess of the debt owed. In United States v. Taylor, 104 U. S. 216 (1881), an Arkansas taxpayer whose property had been sold to satisfy a tax debt sought to recover the surplus from the sale. A nationwide tax had been imposed by Congress in 1861 to raise funds for the Civil War. Under that statute, if a taxpayer did not pay, his property would be sold and “the surplus of the proceeds of the sale [would] be paid to the owner.” Act of Aug. 5, 1861, §36, 12 Stat. 304. The next year, Congress added a 50 percent penalty in the rebelling States, but made no mention of the owner’s right to surplus after a tax sale. See Act of June 7, 1862, §1, 12 Stat. 422. Taylor’s property had been sold for failure to pay taxes under the 1862 Act, but he sought to recover the surplus under the 1861 Act. Though the 1862 Act “ma[de] no mention of the right of the owner of the lands to receive the surplus proceeds of their sale,” we held that the taxpayer was entitled to the surplus because nothing in the 1862 Act took