Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/418

share of the gross earnings tax paid by plaintiff, in lieu of all taxes upon the plaintiff's property, is utterly without foundation in principle. In the first place, there is wanting a vital element of estoppel. The payment by the plaintiff of the gross earnings was not. induced by any word or act of the county from which the plaintiff would or did infer that the county, when it ultimately obtained its portion of the tax, would release the plaintiff from the payment of taxes due upon its lands. The receipt by the county of the money in lieu of all other taxes was necessarily-after the plaintiff had paid the gross earnings tax to the territory, and this is what the complaint alleges. The plaintiff did not rely on anything said or done by the county when it paid the tax. It relied on its construction of the constitutionality and scope of the law. Moreover, it was not in the power of all the officers combined to estop the county by acts beyond their power. This is elementary law. The power of attorney of all such officers is in the statute. No person can rightfully rely on any assumption of power not found there. There is no estoppel because he knows that the claim of the right to exercise a power not conferred is without foundation. The county did not even agree with the plaintiff to accept its share of the gross earnings tax in lieu of all other taxes. But suppose the complaint had averred that the county had so agreed, what force could such an agreement have? None whatever. The county could act—could bind itself—only through officers of the county. All such officers together could not make such an agreement obligatory upon the county. There is no warrant for the exercise of such an éxtraordinary power found in the statute in express terms. Nor can such an authority be inferred. Every taxpayer has a direct interest in the payment by every other taxpayer of the county of his share of the taxes collected in and by the county. Every piece of property exempted from taxation increases the burden of all other property in the county. If the county officers can bind the taxpayers by agreeing to accept one dollar in lieu of a legal tax of $100, they can bind such taxpayers by a compact to virtually exempt certain property by a release of every thousand dollars of tax for a cent. Now, expand the exercise of this power until it sweeps over nearly all the