Chap. 385.—An ACT to amend and re-enact Section 414, as amended, of the Tax
Code of Virginia, relating to the correction of erroneous assessments. [H B 507]

Approved April 2, 1942

1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That section
four hundred and fourteen, as amended, of the Tax Code of Virginia, be
amended and re-enacted, as follows:

Section 414. Jurisdiction of courts to correct erroneous assess-
ments of local levies generally—Any person assessed with county or city
levies or other local taxes, on real estate, aggrieved by any such assess-
ment, may, unless otherwise specially provided by law, within two years
from the thirty-first day of December of the year in which any such assess-
ment is made, and any person assessed with local levies on personal prop-
erty or a local license tax, aggrieved thereby, may within one year from
the thirty-first day of December of the year in which such assessment is
made, apply for relief to the circuit court of the county, or any city court
of record of the city, wherein such assessment was made. In such proceed-
ing the burden of proof shall be upon the taxpayer to show the property
in question is assessed at more than its fair market value, or, that said
assessment is not uniform in its application, but it shall not be necessary
for the taxpayer to show that intentional, systematic and wilful discrimi-
nation has been made.

_ The application aforesaid may in all cases be filed in the clerk’s office
of any such court in vacation, and the time which shall elapse from the
filing of such application in the clerk’s office, as aforesaid, to the hearing
on the same by the court, shall be excluded from the computation of the
said period of one year or two years, as the case may be.

But where it is shown to the satisfaction of the court, that there has
been a double assessment in any case, one of which assessments 1s proper
and the other erroneous, and that a proper single tax has been paid
thereon, or if it be shown to the satisfaction of the court that the law and/
or ordinance under the provisions of which a county license tax is as-
sessed, has been adjudged illegal by a State court of last resort in a pro-
ceeding pending in such court on February twenty-third, nineteen hun-
dred and forty-two, the court may order such erroneous or illegal assess-
ment to be corrected, and grant redress therefor, whether such erroneous
or illegally assessed tax or license tax has been paid or not, even though
the application for such relief and/or redress be not made to the court
within the time hereinbefore required.

The Commonwealth’s attorney for such county, or the Common-
wealth’s attorney or city attorney for the city, as the case may be, shall
defend the application ; and no order made in favor of the applicant shall
have any validity unless it is stated therein that such attorney did so
defend, or that after notice of such application failed or refused to defend,
in which event the court shall appoint a practicing attorney of the county
or city to defend such motion ; that the commissioner of the revenue mak-
ing the assessment or his successor, if it was made by a commissioner, was
examined as a witness touching the application, and the facts proved be
certified.

If the court be satisfied from the evidence that the assessment is
erroneous and that the erroneous assessment was not caused by the wilful
CHS. 385, 386] ACTS OF ASSEMBLY 611

failure or refusal of the applicant to furnish a list of his property to the tax
assessing authority, as the law requires; or that the applicant is errone-
ously charged with a local license tax and that the erroneous assessment
was not caused by the wilful failure or refusal of the applicant to furnish
the tax assessing authority with the necessary information, as required by
law, in either case, the court may order that the assessment be corrected.
If, in the opinion of the court, the assessment exceeds the proper amount,
the court may reduce the assessment to what in its opinion based on the
evidence is a fair market value of the property involved, and shall order
that the applicant be exonerated from the payment of so much as is
erroneously charged, if not already paid, and if paid, that it be refunded to
him. If, in the opinion of the court, the assessment be less than the proper
amount, the court shall order the assessment increased to what in its
opinion is a fair market value of the property involved, and shall order
that the applicant pay the proper taxes.

For the purpose of reducing or increasing the assessment and adjust-
ing the taxes in either case, the court shall be clothed with all the powers
and duties of the authority who, or which, made the assessment com-
plained of, as of the time when such assessment was made, and all powers
and duties conferred by law upon such authority between the time such
assessment was made and the time such application is heard.

An order of exoneration under this section, when delivered to the
tax-collecting officer, shall restrain him from collecting so much as is thus
erroneously charged. If what was so erroneously charged has been paid,
the order of the court shall compel the treasurer, or city collector, as the
case may be, to refund to the applicant the amount specified in the order.

This section, in so far as it applies to real estate, shall be construed to
include assessments made at a general reassessment, and the remedy
herein provided shall be available to any person assessed at such general
reassessment although no taxes may have been extended on the basis of
such assessment at the time the application is filed. Whenever a correction
of a real estate assessment is ordered by a court, whether such assessment
was made at a general reassessment or not, the clerk of the court shall
certify to the proper commissioner of the revenue the changes made by
the court so that he may note such changes on the land assessment books.

Zz. An emergency existing, this act is in force from its passage.