Chap. 58.—An ACT to amend and re-enact Section 403 of the Tax Code of Vir-
ginia, as amended, relating to additional remedies for the collection of taxes,
State, county and municipal, and the payment of attorneys’ fees for services
heretofore or hereafter rendered in the collection of certain taxes. [S B 105]

Approved February 27, 1946

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That section four hundred three of the Tax Code of Virginia,
as amended, be amended and re-enacted, as follows:

Section 403. Additional remedies for the collection of taxes, State,
county and municipal_——The payment of any taxes, State, county, or
municipal, both those which have been assessed and those which ought
to have been assessed, may, in addition to the remedies now allowed by
law, be enforced by warrant, motion, action of debt or assumpsit, bill in
chancery or by attachment before trial justice, civil and police justice
and courts of record within this State in the same manner, to the same
extent, and with the same righs of appeal as now exist or may hereafter
be provided by law for the enforcement of demands between individuals.
The jurisdiction here conferred on courts of equity shall be concurrent
with the jurisdiction in action at law, and in such equitable proceedings
it shall not be necessary to allege or prove any equitable grounds of
jurisdiction.

Such proceedings shall be instituted in the appropriate court of the
county or city wherein the taxes in question were assessed, or payable,
or wherein the person against whom they were assessed resides, or where-
in such person resided at the time such taxes were assessable.

Such proceedings shall be instituted and conducted in the name of
the Commonwealth of Virginia, or in the name of the county, city, or town
in which such taxes or levies are assessed, at the direction of the board
of supervisors or other governing body of the county, or the council or
other governing body of the city or town, by such attorney or attorneys
as such board, council, or other governing body may employ for the pur-
pose. The declaration, bill, notice or other pleading or bill of particulars
filed therewith shall contain a statement showing the beneficial interest
respectively of the State, county and other municipal or political subdivi-
sion in the sum demanded, and may be amended at any time before final
judgment or decree; provided, that the defendant shall be entitled to a
continuance for a reasonable time when said amendment is made, and
any judgment or decree entered for the plaintiff shall show the facts in
regard to the amount for which it was rendered. In such proceeding the
court shall have all the powers of a tax-assessing officer or body, to the
end that the court may enter an order in such proceeding requiring the
taxpayer to pay all taxes with which he has been properly assessed for
any year or years or to pay all taxes with which upon a correct assess-
ment he is chargeable for any year or years of the three years next pre-
ceding the year in which the proceedings are instituted. Payment of
such judgment or decree shall be enforced by appropriate process of ex-
ecution or attachment in the same manner that it could be enforced in a
proceeding between individuals. Where after the rendition of such a
judgment or decree against a defendant it seems to the attorney for the
Commonwealth having charge thereof that there may not be found with-
in the Commonwealth sufficient property of the defendant out of which
the same may be enforced, but that the same could be enforced in some
other jurisdiction, it shall be his duty to institute in some appropriate
court, State or Federal, in such foreign jurisdiction, any appropriate
proceedings to encorce therein the payment of such judgment.

Nothing in this section shall be construed in derogation of any lien
of the Commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions now existing or
hereafter created by any other provision of law, nor shall any judgment
or decree for taxes, penalties, interest and costs, which taxes, penalties,
interest and costs were themselves liens, be construed as affecting the
priority which such liens had.

This section shall not be construed to repeal any existing provisions
of law providing for the collection of taxes.

Whenever the services of any attorney employed under the pro-
visions of this section, or section two hundred fifty-one of the Tax Code,
or section twenty-five hundred three of the Code of Virginia, to collect
taxes which are a lien on real estate, result in the collection of any such
tax, such attorney may be compensated for his services whether or not
any suit is instituted for the collection of the tax or the sale of the real
estate. All payments heretofore made to attorneys for services in collect-
ing such taxes on real estate, when no suit was instituted for the collec-
tion of the tax or the sale of the real estate, are hereby validated, and no
refund thereof shall be required.