Supreme Court of the United States

“ In comparison, Minnesota’s forfeiture scheme is not about abandonment at all. It gives no weight to the taxpayer’s use of the property. Indeed, the delinquent taxpayer can continue to live in her house for years after falling behind in taxes, up until the government sells it. See §281.70. Minnesota cares only about the taxpayer’s failure to contribute her share to the public fisc. The County cannot frame that failure as abandonment to avoid the demands of the Takings Clause. ”

“ Of course, no one thinks that an individual who profits from an economic penalty has a winning excessive-fines claim. But nor has this Court ever held that a scheme producing fines that punishes some individuals can escape constitutional scrutiny merely because it does not punish others. ”

“ In collecting all other taxes, Minnesota protects the taxpayer’s right to surplus. If a taxpayer falls behind on her income tax and the State seizes and sells her property, “ [a] ny surplus proceeds ...shall ... be credited or refunded” to the owner. §§270C.7101, 270C.7108, subd. 2. So too if a taxpayer does not pay taxes on her personal property, like a car. §277.21, subd. 13. Until 1935, Minnesota followed the same rule for the sale of real property. ”

“ The principle that a government may not take more from a taxpayer than she owes can trace its origins at least as far back as Runnymede in 1215, where King John swore in Magna Carta that when his sheriff or bailiff came to collect any debts owed him from a dead man, they could remove property “until the debt which is evident shall be fully paid to us ”

“ Minnesota may not extinguish a property interest that it recognizes everywhere else to avoid paying just compensation when it is the one doing the taking. Phillips, 524 U. S., at 167.
IV
The County argues that Tyler has no interest in the surplus because she constructively abandoned her home by failing to pay her taxes. States and localities have long imposed “reasonable conditions” on property ownership. Texaco, Inc. v. Short, 454 U. S. 516, 526 (1982) . In Minnesota, one of those conditions is paying property taxes. ”

“ The consensus that a government could not take more property than it was owed held true through the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. States, including Minnesota, continued to require that no more than the minimum amount of land be sold to satisfy the outstanding tax debt. [2] The County identifies just three States that deemed delinquent property entirely forfeited for failure to pay taxes. ”

“ Many of these nonresidents “wholly neglected to pay the taxes” on the land, id., at 565, so Virginia provided that title to any taxpayer’s land was completely “lost, forfeited and vested in the Commonwealth” if the taxpayer failed to pay taxes within a set period, 1790 Va. Acts p. 5, §5. This solution was short lived, however; the Commonwealth repealed the forfeiture scheme in 1814 and once again sold “so much only of each tract of land ... as will be sufficient to discharge the” debt. ”

“ But about a decade later, Virginia enacted a new scheme, which provided for the forfeiture of any delinquent land to the Commonwealth. Virginia passed this harsh forfeiture regime in response to the “loose, cheap and unguarded system of disposing of her public lands” that the Commonwealth had adopted immediately following statehood. McClure v. Maitland, 24 W. Va. 561, 564 (1884) . To encourage settlement, Virginia permitted “any person [to] acquire title to so much ... unappropriated lands as he or she shall desire to purchase” at the price of 40 pounds per 100 acres. ”

“ Hennepin County, Minnesota, sold Geraldine Tyler’s home for $40,000 to satisfy a $15,000 tax bill. Instead of returning the remaining $25,000, the County kept it for itself. The question presented is whether this constituted a taking of property without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
I
Hennepin County imposes an annual tax on real property. Minn. Stat. §273.01 (2022) . The taxpayer has one year to pay before the taxes become delinquent. ”