OCR Text |
Show CORPORATIONS MUST PAY TAXES ON FRANCHIES. Supreme Court of Illinois Renders Decision That May Result in Collections of Millions Mil-lions In Taxes. The supreme court of Illinois haa affirmed the judgment of the circuit court of Sangamon county in what is known as the Chicago teachers' tax case. This in effect awards a writ of mandamus against the state board of equalization to compel it to assess the. capital stock, including franchises, of twenty-three Chicago corporations, the fair cash value of whose capital stock, including franchises over and above the value of their tangible property, is alleged to aggregate $235,000,000. The suit was instituted by the state's attorney at-torney of Sangamon county at the instance in-stance of the Chicago teachers' federation. feder-ation. The court holds that the board in assessing corporations does not Tict as a board of review, but as an original assessor. Instead of making a proper assessment, the court says that- the board arbitrarily and willfully refused to follow a proper and long-established rule in force in this state for making such assessments, by refusing to take into consideration the bonded indebtedness indebt-edness of said corporations. They also disregarded all other rules in force for the making of such assessments, assess-ments, sought to pass new rules for their government, refused to consider the information furdished them by the assessors, as provided, and assessed the capital and franchise of said corporations cor-porations at a nominal sum instead of at the fair cash value thereof. |