Alameda County v. Dalton

Poll-Tax—State Tax.—The state poll-tax authorized to be levied and collected by the legislature under section 12 of article XIII of the constitution, and which is required to be paid when collected into the state school fund, is a state tax.

Counties—Judicial Notice op Classification.-—The courts will take judicial notice that Alameda County is a county of the third class, as classified by the County Government Act of 1897 (Stats. 1897, p. 452, c. 277), for the purpose of regulating the compensation of county officers.

County Government Act of 1897—Counties of Third Class—Assessor’s Bight to. Percentage.—Subdivision 7 of section 160 of the County Government Act of 1897, providing that in counties of the third class “ the assessor shall receive no commission for his collection of taxes on personal property, . . . nor any eom.pensation ox commission for the collection of poll-taxes or road poll-taxes,” and section 215 of the same act, providing that “the salaries and fees provided in this act shall be in full compensation for all services of every kind and description rendered by the officers named; . . . provided, . . . the assessor shall be entitled to receive and retain for Ms own use six per cent on personal property tax collected by Mm . . . and fifteen per cent of all amounts collected by Mm for poll-taxes, and also five dollars per hundred names returned by Mm as subject to military duty; . . . provided, however, that in counties and cities and counties of the first, second, and third classes the assessor shall receive no commission for the collection of taxes on personal property, nor shall such assessor receive any compensation for making out a military roll of persons returned by him as subject to military duty,” are irreconcilably conflicting-in respect to the right of the assessor of counties of the third class to retain a percentage of the poll-taxes collected by him, and therefore the provisions of section 215 of the act being the latest in point of position, and the last expression of legislative intent upon the subject, must prevail.