Texas Attorney General Opinion: O-1461 Page: 2 of 5
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Honorable Tom L. Hartley, Page 2
him in writing to pay the same, and to
furnish the collector the information
necessary to fill out the blanks in the
poll tax receipt. Such authority and
information must be signed by the party
who owes the poll tax, and must be de-
posited with the tax collector and filed
and preserved by him."
Article 2963, Vernon's Civil Statutes of the State
of Texas, provides that when the poll tax is paid by an agent,
the tax receipt shall not be delivered to the agent, but shall
be sent by mail to the taxpayer, or kept and delivered to the
taxpayer in person by the tax collector.
We have considered the case of Wallis v. Williams,
110 S. W. 785, (1908 T. C. A. Galveston), to which you refer,
as holding "The right of suffrage conferred by the Constitution
does not depend upon the payment of his poll tax 'in person'
by the voter." Upon an examination of this case we have con-
cluded that while it is in line with several authorities hold-
inag that if a poll tax is issued irregularly it will not operate
to disfranchise the voter, however, the principle is not to be
construed, in our opinion, as authority for a tax collector to
issue a poll tax other than as provided by statute. The court
in this case said:
"The statute upon the subject directs
that the voter shall pay the tax in person,
or give a written order therefor; but it does
not provide that a failure to obtain his re-
ceipt in the manner directed by the statute
will disfranchise the voter."t
The case of Parker v. Busby, et al, (T. C. A. Galves-
ton, 1914), 170 S. W. 1042, was a mandamus proceeding to require
the tax collector of Hardin County to issue a poll tax receipt
both to parties who had tendered the tax by agents holding duly
written authority and to parties who had made application for
their poll tax receipts by mail. Note that it does not appear
that the parties makng application by mail did so pursuant to
assessments against them.
"V;e think it is only necessary to add
that the law does not provide for the pay-
ment by a taxpayer of his poll taxes through
mail and that the plaintiffs * * * who
sought to make payment and obtain their polltax receipts in this way, have no right to
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: O-1461, text, November 7, 1939; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth258647/m1/2/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.