Municipal tax

“ And the ordinary means in such cases is taxation. A municipality without the power of taxation would be a body without life, incapable of acting, and serving no useful purpose.
For the same reason, when authority to borrow money or incur an obligation in order to execute a public work is conferred upon a municipal corporation, the power to levy a tax for its payment or the discharge of the obligation accompanies it ”

“ Each fiscal year, the Legislature shall appropriate for the operation of the municipal governments at least 8 percent of the state operation funds, and shall appropriate to the municipalities for development projects at least 40 percent of the development funds that may be allocated. Section 7. The State Government has the power to tax, and may delegate certain taxing powers to the municipal governments by statute. All taxes levied by the State Government shall be prescribed by statute. Section 8. No government may levy a tax on real property. ”

“ If the constitution of a State should declare that no tax shall be levied exceeding a certain per cent of the value of the property taxed, any statute imposing a larger rate would be void as to the excess. If the legislature should say that no municipal corporation should assess a tax beyond a certain per cent, the courts would not hesitate to pronounce a levy in excess of that rate void. ”

“ The increase or decrease in rate of taxation accomplished through a change in the otherwise applicable millage rate shall affect only the general millage rate for county or municipal maintenance and operations. A county and one or more municipalities in the county may, but shall not be required to, establish a joint community redevelopment tax incentive program through the adoption of concurrent ordinances. No Act of the General Assembly shall be required for counties and municipalities to establish community redevelopment tax incentive programs. ”

“ There is another, equally intensive test to which social institutions and sanitary conditions can be put. It is conceivable that the tax payer may get his money's worth from the municipal government, while the families of the wage earning population and householders may be suffering from another and irreparable form of taxation, which only increased municipal expenditure along certain lines could relieve. ”

“ We will not gainsay that this license tax was imposed as a revenuem easure,-as a means of taxing the business, and thus compelling it to aid in supporting the city government. That no revenue for state or municipal purposes can be derived from the agencies or instrumentalities of commerce no one will contend. ”

“ During this period there was in force the act of the legislature of 1871, of which section 7 is as follows: 'That no city or other municipal corporation shall levy a tax for any purpose which shall exceed two per centum on the assessed cash value of all the property therein listed for taxation, nor shall the police jury of any parish levy a tax for any parish purposes during any year which shall exceed one hundred per centum of the state tax for that year, unless such excess shall be first sanctioned by a vote of the majority of the voters.' Acts 1871, p. ”

“ There is no township government existing there; no provision for the organization of school and road districts or for the establishment of other municipal governments, and hence it may be seen that, even assuming the power of the legislature to tax for all such purposes at the same rate as in an organized county, and to provide for the collection and payment of such taxes into the county treasury for disbursement for county purposes, yet still the injustice of such a rate of taxation would naturally appeal to the legislature and result in some legislation of the kind passed in 1899. ”

“ We think it will not be denied by any one that these are public purposes, in which the whole community have an interest, and for which, by common consent, property owners everywhere in this country are taxed. There are items styled city tax and city buildings which, in the absence of any explanation, we must suppose to be for the good government of the city, and for the construction of such buildings as are necessary for municipal purposes. ”

“ No one species of property shall be taxed higher than another species of property of equal value on which taxes shall be levied; the legislature shall have power to lavy an income tax, and to tax all persons pursuing any occupation, trade, or profession.'
This article has been frequently before the Supreme Court of the State for construction, and until the decision of the present case the requirement of equality and uniformity in the tax has been held to apply only to taxes levied for State, and not to those levied for municipal, purposes. ”

“ A city is a municipal corporation, a political subdivision of the state, charged with certain specified duties of government within its territorial limits, and for the full discharge of those duties it is authorized to levy taxes. In this respect it does not differ from a county, and, although some of the funds derived from a city tax may have been used for public improvement, that does not change the character of the tax. ”

“ We believe that municipalities should have complete self-government as regards all the affairs that are exclusively their own, including the important matter of taxation, and that the burden of municipal taxation should be so shifted as to put the weight of land [Pg 835] taxation upon the unearned rise in value of the land itself rather than upon the improvements, the buildings; the effort being to prevent the undue rise of rent. ”

“ Article 4 For the sake of conducting autonomous affairs or generating more revenues, a municipal or county (city) government may add up to thirty percent (30%) to the upper limit of the originally prescribed tax rate (or amount) for local taxes, except for stamp tax and land value increment tax. In case the original prescribed tax rate adopts a progressive schedule, rates for all tax brackets shall be increased at the same time while the number of tax brackets remains unchanged. ”

“ Leaving out of consideration financially self-sustaining municipal investments, like many municipal water works, which are usually reckoned apart from the municipal debt and which do not impose a burden upon the tax payers as such, the temporary relief from financial difficulties secured as above described, by extending the limit of a city’s borrowing power or by expedients such as the contract method of paying for land, leaves the ultimate burden on the municipality and substantially distributes it over the whole of the taxable property of the city in accordance with valuation. ”

“ The salient points in this statement are, that in four years the rate of municipal taxation has increased almost 25 per cent; the total amount of municipal taxes has increased over thirty-seven per cent, and municipal indebtedness has increased about one hundred and ninety per cent, or more than thirteen and a half millions of dollars. If this great increase of burdens affected directly the whole people of the State, they would give their agents in the legislative and executive departments of the State government no peace until effective measures to prevent its continuance were adopted. ”

“ Where a municipal corporation sells a tract of land, and their authorized agents represent that there are no municipal taxes assessed against the same, neither the municipality nor its proper officers can collect from the grantees taxes for preceding years, if assessed subsequently to the conveyance. ”

“ Provided, that the legislature may authorize municipal corporations to levy and collect assessments for local improvements upon property benefited thereby without regard to a cash valuation, and provided further, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to affect, modify or repeal any existing law providing for the taxation of the gross earnings of railroads.
Occupation tax. ”

“ If, as we have held, it is permissible for the state for its own purposes to impose a tax on a graduated scale depending upon the number of units operated by the chain, it is equally so for a municipality to grade its taxation by the same method, when duly authorized by state authority. ”

“ Of course, the levying of the present tax does not curtail the business of the state government more than it does the like business of the citizen. But the same might be true in the case of many state activities which have long been assumed to be immune from federal taxation. When a municipality acquires a water system or an electric power plant and transmission facilities, it withdraws projects from the field of private enterprise. Is the tax immunity to be denied because a tax on the municipality would not curtail the municipality more than it would the prior private owner? ”

“ Consequently, in most municipalities, the residents were taxed for the improvement, maintenance, and management of streets through property taxes, poll levies, or some other form of local tax. In the downtown areas of some of the larger places, businesses were taxed or they contributed voluntarily to the more highly improved streets. ”

“ If this tax be sustainable at all, it must be upon the theory adopted by the court that the municipality has the right to tax the company for the use of its streets. While I have no doubt of its right to impose a reasonable tax for such use, the tax must be such as to appear to have been laid bona fide for that purpose. It seems to me, however, that the imposition of a tax of $5 upon every pole erected by the company throughout the entire municipality is so excessive as to indicate that it was imposed with a different object. ”

“ Import and excise duties are indirect taxes, that is, not paid directly by the consumer. The bulk of state taxes are laid directly on property. The heaviest taxes usually are those laid for local purposes by the county or city. Besides the ordinary city or county taxes, assessments are often made on property specially benefited, for opening streets or roads, for street-lamps, sewers, water-service etc.
Unjust and unfair taxation has often caused discontent and even revolutions, and how to tax without oppressing the people is a deep problem. ”

“ But the most serious misfits of town government are the local agents of tax administration. Wherever the town is the smallest tax unit not only is the number of officials needlessly multiplied, but diverse standards of property valuation are set up and competition is resorted to between towns with a view to escaping their just share of taxation. Without a dissenting voice the recognized tax experts of the county are firmly of the opinion that the town as a unit of tax assessment and tax collection must give way to the county. ”

“ It is only necessary to hold that persons giving credit to the city, with a knowledge of this limit to its taxing powers, must do so on the condition of waiting until that amount of tax will pay them, or until the legislature shall remove the restriction ”

“ As part of this machinery taxation districts must be created. All property within the district must be taxed by a uniform rate. If property is actually within a district it is but proper that the legislature should provide that it should be listed, valued, and assessed there. In fact, the last clause of section five, Article 9, seems to make that a duty, for it provides that the General Assembly shall require that all property within the limits of municipal corporations, belonging to individuals, shall be taxed for the payment of debts contracted under authority of law. ”

“ Within reasonable limits it ought to be conceded the right to formulate its own scheme of taxation. In every important American city the taxes collected for municipal purposes greatly exceed those imposed for the support of the county and state government. In a matter which so vitally concerns the city it ought to have some right to pursue a policy of its own. ”

“ Assessments shall in no case exceed full value. Nothing in this constitution shall be deemed to prevent the legislature from providing for the assessment, levy and collection of village taxes by the taxing authorities of those subdivisions of the state in which the lands comprising the respective villages are located, nor from providing that the respective counties of the state may loan or advance to any village located in whole or in part within such county the amount of any tax which shall have been levied for village purposes upon any lands located within such county and remaining unpaid. ”

“ If the municipality does the work, then continuous taxes are collected; if the Government does it, the city is taxed for it. In the country, five days' work on public improvements is considered an equivalent for the tax. ”

“ It merely provides a means for the county to apply to railroad property its own rate of taxation and collect the tax for county purposes. The vital thing is the rate, and the state has nothing to do with fixing it in any county beyond general regulations restricting its amount and the like. It is entirely immaterial whether mere ministerial acts and calculations, which, when correctly done and made, can have but one possible result, are the work of the comptroller general or of the county authorities. ”

“ No statute was in existence when this writ was sued out authorizing the county board to levy a special tax for ordinary revenue, or for ordinary expenditure, or, indeed, for any purpose except those we have noticed, unless it be found in section 3275 of the code, to which we shall presently refer. And the legislature of the State has made a clear distinction between ordinary county taxation, which the board of county supervisors may, at their discretion, levy within prescribed limits, and special taxation for extraordinary emergencies, which can only be imposed in obedience to a popular vote. ”