Victorias Milling Co v. Court Of Tax Appeals

J.P., J.:

In 1947 the Provincial Assessor assessed for purposes of the 1948 real property tax, machineries belonging to Victorias Milling Co., Inc. at a value of P4,012,180.00 after allowing a deduction of 50% for depreciation. In due time, Victories Milling Co., Inc. (Victorias for short) paid under protest the corresponding tax. For the year 1949, the same machineries were assessed at P3,904,310.00, which is equivalent to the assessed value for 1948 minus 3% depreciation.

Victorias again paid the tax under protest. For the years 1950 through 1953 the same and other machineries were assessed as follows: Year Assessed Value 1950 P4,101,490.00 1951 4,060,060.00 1952 3,273,930.00 1953 3,023,910.00 The corresponding taxes due on the said machineries were paid under protest. Victorias, however, did not appeal from all the aforesaid assessments to the Provincial Board of Assessment Appeals as required in Section 17 of the Assessment Law.

Instead, on April 24, 1953 it filed a complaint with the Court of First Instance of Negros Occidental against the Provincial Treasurer of Negros Occidental, alleging inter alia , that the assessor erroneously did not follow the "straight line method" in determining the depreciation of its machineries as provided for by Provincial Circular (unnumbered) dated February 7, 1940 of the Department of Finance; that for the tax year 1948 the value of its pre-war machineries should be depreciated at 74% 1 instead of only 50%; and that depreciation for 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952 and 1953 should be at 77%, 80%, 83%, 86%, and 89%, respectively. It prayed for the refund of the sum of P134,969.70 computed as follows: Second Cause of Action Year Tax Paid Adjusted Tax Refundable 1948 P35,957.80 P18,698.00 P17,259.80 1949 34,879.10 16,540.60 18,338.50 1950 36,850.90 15,590.40 21,260.50 1951 36,436.60 13,494.00 22,942.60 1952 30,657.30 11,112.70 19,544.60 1953 28,282.00