Rufus Wheeler Peckham

“ Whatever the expectation of the purchasers, or the unbroken practice of the city hitherto may have been, the mandate of the Constitution of 1877 is to tax all property, save that expressly exempted by the legislature under constitutional authority, if any is taxed. ”

“ Where taxation is ad valorem, values are the ultimate objects of taxation, and they to whom the values belong should pay the taxes. Land sold or by a contract of bargain and sale demised forever subject to a perpetual rent, is taxable as corporeal property ”

“ If the municipal government held all the values in the city as trustee for the owners, or as security for purchase money, these values would be none the less taxable for that reason. The Constitution of the state requires that taxes on property shall be ad valorem, and that when any part is taxed all shall be taxed which is subject for the time being to the taxing power in the given locality. ”

“ The real owners of the money which these lots would now sell for on the market are the persons whom we have designated as owners, and it is upon the cash market value that taxes are assessable. If that value is any less, on account of the subjection of the property to ground rents or unpaid purchase money, than it otherwise would be, that fact would no doubt be taken into consideration in making the assessment. The market value, whatever that may be, is the proper basis. ”

“ Where the purchaser holds real property for a term which may be in perpetuity, upon the condition of paying a certain ground rent, and where he is entitled to a deed conveying the fee at any time on the payment of certain money, he is more nearly described as an owner than he is as a lessee of such property, and he would be liable to pay the taxes imposed upon the property upon the principle which is set forth in Sanderson v. ”

“ The covenant on the part of the city that the purchasers should have peaceable and quiet possession, use, occupation, and enjoyment of the lots upon payment of the rent as it became due, is in nowise violated by the taxation of the lots in the hands of the purchasers or their assigns. ”

“ Chief Justice Bleckley, in his opinion in this case on its first appearance in the supreme court of Georgia (87 Ga. 397, 13 S. E. 442) , at page 399, S. E. p. 442, et seq., said:
'The value of property consists in its use, and he who owns the use forever, though it be on condition subsequent, is the true owner of the property for the time being. This holds equally of a city lot or of all the land in the world. ”

“ We do not by this mean to intimate that the title would not have been equally subject to the condition contained in the deed by accepting the deed while not signing it; but in addition to the acceptance there is the affirmative act of signing the instrument, and we think the language subjecting the lots to the same assessments and burthens as were laid in common with other lot holders created a valid agreement, and made the lands subject to the same kind of taxation as is levied upon other lots in the city. ”

“ Relatively to the question of taxation, it makes no substantial difference whether the estate or property of beneficial owners be classed as realty or personalty, whatever property of either kind belongs to them is taxable ad valorem. That the so-called ground-rent lots, as long as the conditions of sale are unbroken, are the property of the purchasers, follows from what was decided by this court in Laurence v. ”