First Nat. Bank of Albuquerque v. Albright

Background

A bank sued county tax officials in New Mexico to stop a reassessment of its 1903 tax on stock and real estate. The bank had given the assessor a single lumped valuation of $90,000 for capital stock, surplus, and real estate. The assessor instead separated the items, valued the stock at sixty percent of par, and raised the total to $150,542. The Territorial Board of Equalization affirmed. The bank paid the amount it admitted was due, was later sued for the remainder, and then asked a court to cancel the assessment and block any new reassessment. The complaint admitted the bank’s original return did not follow local law, and the territorial high court held both the return and the assessment were flawed but said a reassessment was authorized.

Reasoning

The core question was whether a court should stop a proposed reassessment before it actually happens. The Court assumed the bank might be right that taxing bank shares more heavily than other moneyed capital would violate Rev. Stat. § 5219, and that some deductions might be required for bank-owned real estate. But the Court said the bank’s allegations were too speculative to justify equitable relief now. Acceptance of what the bank admitted it owed did not prevent later claims, but neither did the existing pleadings show that no lawful reassessment could be made. A court should not bar a tax officer from performing statutory duties out of apprehension the officer might act wrongly. Equity should await a completed assessment.

Real world impact

The decision lets the reassessment process proceed and leaves open the bank’s legal claims until an actual assessment is recorded. Banks and county tax officials must rely on ordinary tax proceedings and later legal challenges; the ruling does not resolve the substantive tax questions raised.