Definition
Past tense and past participial form of "assess." In legal contexts, "assessed" carries three principal meanings depending on subject matter:
1. TAX CONTEXT: A tax or charge has been formally determined and levied by an authorized governmental body. A tax is "assessed" when the taxing authority has completed the official act of fixing the amount owed and recording it against the taxpayer or property. This is a term of art with procedural consequences — statutes of limitations, rights of appeal, and collection authority typically run from the date a tax is assessed, not from when it is owed or paid.
2. PROPERTY VALUATION CONTEXT: A property has been valued for the purpose of computing a tax, fee, or charge. "Assessed value" is the figure placed on real or personal property by an assessor, which then serves as the base for calculating the tax rate. The assessed value may differ substantially from market value.
3. CORPORATE/STOCK CONTEXT: A call or charge has been imposed on stockholders — typically to require additional payment on shares beyond the original subscription price. Shareholders in assessable stock arrangements may be "assessed" up to the par value of their shares to cover corporate obligations.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Simple past and past participle of "assess" — broadly, to have evaluated, estimated, or judged something.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To have valued or estimated for the purpose of taxation; to have charged with a share of a burden.
The common meaning of "assessed" as a general synonym for "evaluated" or "judged" obscures the precise procedural moment the word captures in legal usage. In tax law especially, "assessed" does not mean merely calculated or estimated — it means formally and officially levied through a completed governmental act. A researcher who reads "assessed" in a tax statute as simply meaning "determined" will miss the procedural threshold that triggers appeal deadlines, collection powers, and limitations periods.
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Common Confusion
"Assessed," "levied," and "collected" are frequently used interchangeably in older sources and popular writing, but they describe distinct stages of the tax process. Assessment is the formal determination and recording of the amount owed. Levy refers to the legal claim or imposition of the tax (and in enforcement contexts, the seizure of property to satisfy it). Collection is the actual receipt of payment. Confusing these stages produces serious research errors when working with statutes of limitations, jeopardy provisions, or taxpayer rights materials, since many legal rights and deadlines attach specifically to one stage and not the others.
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Why It Matters in Research
The word "assessed" appears in a wide range of legal instruments — tax codes, corporate charters, municipal ordinances, and property records — and its meaning shifts significantly by context. Researchers face three recurring traps:
First, in tax materials, the timing of assessment is everything. Statutes of limitations for tax collection, the government's right to audit, and the taxpayer's right to contest all hinge on when assessment occurred, not when the underlying liability arose. Historical sources often blur this distinction; early cases and treatises may treat "assessed" loosely as a synonym for "due" or "imposed."
Second, in corporate charter interpretation, the limiting force of "assessed" was contested throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Black's entries reflect this live debate: a charter provision exempting a company from taxes "levied or assessed" might or might not cover special improvement charges, depending on how narrowly courts read the term. The New Jersey Midland case excerpt in the second edition illustrates how courts wrestled with whether "assessed" described only general tax levies or also captured special assessments for public improvements. This distinction drove significant litigation over railroad and utility charters.
Third, in property valuation contexts, "assessed value" is a term that evolved with local government finance. Researchers working with 19th-century property records should not assume that "assessed" value bore any fixed ratio to market value; practices varied widely by jurisdiction and era, and reassessment cycles were irregular.
Corpus researchers should also note that "assessed" appears as a passive construction throughout statutory and judicial materials, which can obscure the actor. Who assessed the charge — a municipal board, a state authority, a corporate board — affects which legal rules apply.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's address "assessed" in the specific context of corporate charter tax exemption clauses rather than as a standalone definition. This is itself informative: the dictionaries treat the interpretive controversy over the term as the primary legal problem worth addressing, rather than offering a general definition.
The first edition entry and the second edition entry are substantively identical in their analysis, tracking the New Jersey Midland line of cases for the proposition that "assessed" in a tax exemption proviso describes the act of levying a general tax — not special improvement levies. This judicial interpretation was designed to preserve municipal power to charge for local improvements even against corporations holding broad tax exemptions.
What the historical dictionaries do not supply is a general treatment of "assessed" in tax procedure or corporate stock assessment contexts. Researchers relying solely on Black's for this term will find only the charter exemption problem addressed. The broader procedural and valuation meanings must be sourced elsewhere — in tax codes, administrative materials, and treatises on municipal and corporate law.
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Jurisdictional Note
The procedural moment at which a tax is legally "assessed" — and the consequences that flow from it — varies by jurisdiction and tax type. Federal tax law under the Internal Revenue Code defines assessment with particularity, including through jeopardy assessment procedures. State property tax systems define assessment through local administrative frameworks that differ significantly in timing, process, and appeal rights. Researchers should not import federal tax procedural rules into state tax contexts or vice versa.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Jeopardy Assessments (The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia)
Statute of Limitations Assessment (The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia)
Corporate Finance -- Stock Subscriptions and Assessments (The Law Mind Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia)
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