Case Title: Harper v. Virginia Dept. of Taxation

Citation: 

Docket Number: 940326

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 1995-09-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  Carrico, C.J., Compton, Stephenson, Whiting
2, Lacy,   
Hassell, and Keenan, JJ. 
 
HENRY HARPER, ET AL. 
 
v.  Record No. 940326 
 
VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF TAXATION 
 
                                             OPINION BY 
 
CHIEF JUSTICE HARRY L. CARRICO 
                                          September 15, 1995 
LAWRENCE E. LEWY, ET AL. 
 
v.  Record No. 940411 
 
VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF TAXATION 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
Donald H. Kent, Judge 
 
 
This appeal involves the interpretation of a tax-refund 
statute, Code § 58.1-1826, which provides in pertinent part as 
follows: 
 
If the court is satisfied that the applicant is 
erroneously or improperly assessed with any taxes, the 
court may order that the assessment be corrected.  If 
the assessment exceeds the proper amount, the court may 
order that the applicant be exonerated from the payment 
of so much as is erroneously or improperly charged, if 
not already paid and, if paid, that it be refunded to 
him.  If the assessment is less than the proper amount, 
the court shall order that the applicant pay the proper 
taxes . . . . 
 
The question for decision is whether the trial court erred in 
denying refunds for taxes erroneously or improperly collected for 
pension income received by federal retirees.  The question is 
presented against the following factual and legal background. 
 
On March 28, 1989, in Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 
                     
     
2Justice Whiting participated in the hearing and 
decision of this case prior to the effective date of his 
retirement on August 12, 1995. 
 
489 U.S. 803, the Supreme Court of the United States held that a 
Michigan statute which defined taxable income in a manner 
exempting from taxation the pension income of retired state 
employees, but not the pension income of retired federal 
employees, violated the doctrine of intergovernmental tax immunity 
embodied 
in 
the 
supremacy 
clause 
of 
the 
United 
States 
Constitution.  Id. at 817.  The Court stated that Michigan "having 
conceded that a refund is appropriate in these circumstances," the 
appellant "is entitled to a refund" to the extent he "has paid 
taxes pursuant to this invalid tax scheme."  Id.  
 
Virginia similarly exempted the pension income of retired 
state and local government employees, but not the pension income 
of retired federal employees.  Following Davis, the Virginia 
General Assembly repealed the exemption for state and local 
employees, Acts 1989, Spec. Sess. II, c. 3, but made no provision 
at the time for the relief of federal retirees for the taxes they 
had paid prior to Davis.
3    
 
Also in 1989, Henry Harper and Lawrence and Miriam Lewy, 
                     
     
3In 1994, the General Assembly enacted the Federal 
Retirees Settlement Program.  Acts 1994, Spec. Sess. I, c. 
5.  This legislation authorized the Tax Commissioner "to 
make settlement payments to taxpayers to resolve disputed 
claims for refunds of taxes paid with respect to retirement 
or pension benefits received from a federal retirmenet 
system . . . for any taxable year beginning on or after 
January 1, 1985, and ending on or before December 31, 1988." 
 The legislation provided that "[t]he taxpayers shall be 
given the option of whether they want to participate in the 
settlement" and "[t]hose who do not want to participate will 
have the option of having their entitlement to refunds 
determined by existing litigation or filing suit 
themselves."  The Harper taxpayers have exercised the latter 
option and seek to have their entitlement to refunds 
determined in the present litigation. 
along with numerous other federal pensioners, brought proceedings 
in several Virginia circuit courts seeking refunds of taxes paid 
since 1985 on income from civil service annuities or pensions for 
federal employment or military duty.  The several proceedings were 
consolidated into one action in the Circuit Court of the City of 
Alexandria, where the matter has been litigated, and the case is 
before this Court for the third time.  The Circuit Court of the 
City of Alexandria will be referred to hereinafter as the trial 
court; the plaintiffs in the consolidated action will be referred 
to collectively as Harper or the Harper taxpayers; and the 
Virginia Department of Taxation will be referred to as the 
Department. 
 
 In the initial proceeding below, the trial court ruled that 
Davis should be applied only prospectively and denied the refunds 
sought by Harper.  We awarded Harper an appeal and affirmed the 
judgment of the trial court, holding that Davis should not "be 
applied retroactively" and that "state law does not require tax 
refunds, but to the contrary, grants prospective-only application 
to decisions that invalidate a taxing scheme."  Harper v. Virginia 
Dept. of Taxation, 241 Va. 232, 243, 401 S.E.2d 868, 874 (1991). 
 
The Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated our judgment, 
and remanded the case "for further consideration in light of James 
B. Beam Distilling Co. v. Georgia, [501 U.S. 529, 540 (1991) 
(error to refuse to apply rule of federal law retroactively after 
case announcing rule has already done so)]."  Harper v. Virginia 
Dept. of Taxation, 501 U.S. 1247 (1991) (Harper I).  Upon remand, 
we reaffirmed "our prior decision in all respects," stating that 
"having reconsidered our . . . decision in light of Beam, we 
conclude that nothing articulated in Beam requires a result 
different from that reached in our prior decision."  Harper v. 
Virginia Dept. of Taxation, 242 Va. 322, 327, 410 S.E.2d 629, 632 
(1991). 
 
The Supreme Court again granted certiorari.  Harper v. 
Virginia Dept. of Taxation, 504 U.S. 954 (1992).  Disagreeing with 
this Court's treatment of the retroactivity issue, the Court 
stated that its response in Davis to Michigan's concession that a 
refund was appropriate "constituted a retroactive application of 
the rule announced in Davis to the parties before the Court."  
Harper v. Virginia Dept. of Taxation, 509 U.S. ___, 113 S.Ct. 
2510, 2518 (1993) (Harper II).  Therefore, the Court held, "the 
Supreme Court of Virginia must apply Davis in [Harper's] refund 
action."  Id.  
 
The Court reversed our judgment, but did not enter judgment 
for the Harper taxpayers because, it said, "federal law does not 
necessarily entitle them to a refund."  509 U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. 
at 2519.  Rather, the Court stated, "the Constitution requires 
Virginia 'to provide relief consistent with federal due process 
principles.'"  Id. (quoting American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. 
Smith, 496 U.S. 167, 181 (1990)).  But, the Court explained, "'a 
State found to have imposed an impermissibly discriminatory tax 
retains flexibility in responding to this determination.'"  Harper 
II, 509 U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2519 (quoting McKesson Corp. v. 
Division of Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco, 496 U.S. 18, 39-40 
(1990)). 
 
The Court stated further that "[i]f Virginia 'offers a 
meaningful opportunity for taxpayers to withhold contested tax 
assessments and to challenge their validity in a predeprivation 
hearing,' 
the 
'availability 
of 
a 
predeprivation 
hearing 
constitutes a procedural safeguard . . . sufficient by itself to 
satisfy the Due Process Clause.'"  Harper II, 509 U.S. at ___, 113 
S.Ct. at 2519 (quoting McKesson, 496 U.S. at 38 n.21).  "On the 
other hand," the Court continued, "if no such predeprivation 
remedy exists, 'the Due Process Clause . . . obligates the State 
to provide meaningful backward-looking relief to rectify any 
unconstitutional deprivation.'"  Harper II, 509 U.S. at ___, 113 
S.Ct. at 2519 (quoting McKesson, 496 U.S. at 31).  Finally, the 
Court said that "[i]n providing such relief, a State may either 
award full refunds to those burdened by an unlawful tax or issue 
some other order that 'create[s] in hindsight a nondiscriminatory 
scheme.'"  Harper II, 509 U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2519-20 
(quoting McKesson, 496 U.S. at 40). 
 
The Court remanded the case to this Court "for further 
proceedings not inconsistent with [its] opinion."  Harper II, 509 
U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2520; Lewy v. Virginia Dept. of 
Taxation, ___ U.S. ___, 113 S.Ct. 3024 (1993).  In turn, we 
remanded the matter to the trial court "for further proceedings 
not inconsistent with the views expressed in the written opinion 
of the Supreme Court of the United States [in Harper II]."  
 
The trial court ruled that Virginia does provide a taxpayer a 
meaningful 
predeprivation 
opportunity 
to 
challenge 
a 
tax, 
sufficient to satisfy due process, in the form of a declaratory 
judgment proceeding brought under Code § 8.01-184.  The trial 
court ruled further that, assuming there had been no due process 
violation, Virginia's refund statute, Code § 58.1-1826, did not 
mandate refunds to the taxpayers in the present case because the 
statute vests courts with discretion in determining whether 
refunds should be ordered.  Accordingly, the trial court denied 
Harper's request for refunds. 
 
We awarded Harper an appeal.  Harper argues that because a 
court exercises discretion in determining whether to entertain 
requests for declaratory judgments, Haughton v. Lankford, 189 Va. 
183, 198, 52 S.E.2d 111, 117 (1949), Virginia's declaratory 
judgment proceeding does not provide a meaningful opportunity for 
taxpayers to withhold contested tax assessments and to challenge 
their validity in a predeprivation hearing.   
 
Hence, Harper asserts, under McKesson and Harper II, due 
process obligates Virginia to provide meaningful backward-looking 
relief, in the form of a clear and certain remedy, to rectify an 
unconstitutional assessment of taxes.  Harper says that we have 
interpreted language in the statutory ancestor of Code § 58.1-1826 
as mandating the refund of taxes illegally collected and, 
therefore, that § 58.1-1826 provides the backward-looking relief 
due process requires.  Accordingly, Harper concludes, it was error 
for the trial court to refuse to apply § 58.1-1826 and order 
refunds in this case. 
 
The Department argues on the other hand that Virginia's 
declaratory judgment proceeding provided the Harper taxpayers an 
adequate and meaningful predeprivation opportunity to challenge 
the validity of the taxes in dispute, yet they failed to avail 
themselves of the opportunity.  Hence, the Department concludes, 
the requirements of due process are satisfied, and Virginia is not 
required to provide any backward-looking relief in the form of 
refunds.   
 
With respect to Code § 58.1-1826, the Department contends 
that use of the word "may" in the statute denotes the exercise of 
discretion in the ordering of refunds.  The Department makes this 
argument: 
 
If the assessment is below the proper amount, the court 
"shall" order the payment of the taxes.  The court has 
no discretion.  If the assessment is above the proper 
amount, the court "may" order the refunds of the taxes. 
 The court is clothed with discretion in regard to 
refunds.  There is no other explanation for the 
legislature's choice of "shall" and "may" within § 58.1-
1826. 
 
Hence, the Department concludes, § 58.1-1826 "simply cannot be 
read as a legislatively mandated 'entitlement' to refunds," and 
the trial court did not err in refusing to order refunds.       
 
Finally, the parties debate the effect of a decision of the 
Supreme Court announced after the trial court decided the present 
case.  In Reich v. Collins, 513 U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 547 (1994), 
Reich, a retired military officer, filed suit following the 
Supreme Court's decision in Davis seeking a refund from the State 
of Georgia of income taxes paid on his military pension.  
Georgia's refund statute provided that "[a] taxpayer shall be 
refunded any and all taxes or fees which are determined to have 
been erroneously or illegally assessed and collected from him."  
513 U.S. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 549. 
 
The Georgia trial court denied Reich's request for a refund, 
and the Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed, holding that the refund 
statute did not "apply to 'the situation where the law under which 
the taxes are assessed and collected is itself subsequently 
declared to be unconstitutional or otherwise invalid.'"  Id. 
(quoting Reich v. Collins, 422 S.E.2d 846, 849 (Ga. 1992)).  Reich 
petitioned for certiorari, but while his petition was pending, the 
United States Supreme Court decided Harper II.  The Court then 
remanded Reich's case to the Supreme Court of Georgia for further 
consideration in light of Harper II.  513 U.S. at ___, 115 S.Ct. 
at 550. 
 
On remand, the Supreme Court of Georgia again denied Reich's 
request 
for 
a 
refund, 
this 
time 
holding 
that 
Georgia's 
predeprivation remedies were ample to provide a "'meaningful 
opportunity[, sufficient for due process purposes,] for taxpayers 
to withhold contested tax assessments and to challenge their 
validity.'"  Reich v. Collins, 437 S.E.2d 320, 321 (Ga. 1993) 
(quoting Harper II, 509 U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2519).  Reich 
again petitioned for certiorari, and the writ was granted.  The 
Supreme Court reversed, saying that, under McKesson, a state has 
"the 
flexibility 
to 
maintain 
an 
exclusively 
predeprivation 
remedial scheme, so long as that scheme is 'clear and certain.'"  
Reich, 513 U.S. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 550.  Due process, the Court 
continued, also allows a state "to maintain an exclusively 
postdeprivation regime . . . or a hybrid regime."  Id.  And, the 
Court declared, a state "is free as well to reconfigure its 
remedial scheme over time, to fit its changing needs."  Id.   
 
But, the Court said,  
 
what a State may not do, and what Georgia did here, is 
to reconfigure its scheme, unfairly, in midcourse -- to 
"bait 
and 
switch," 
as 
some 
have 
described 
it.  
Specifically, in the mid-1980's, Georgia held out what 
plainly 
appeared 
to 
be 
a 
"clear 
and 
certain" 
postdeprivation remedy, in the form of its tax refund 
statute, and then declared, only after Reich and others 
had paid the disputed taxes, that no such remedy exists. 
Id.   
 
The Department argues that Reich is inapplicable here.  The 
Department points out the mandate in the Georgia statute that "[a] 
taxpayer shall be refunded any and all taxes . . . which are 
determined to have been erroneously or illegally assessed and 
collected."  (Emphasis added.)  The Department then says that 
"[d]espite this mandatory language, . . . the Georgia Supreme 
Court ruled, apparently for the first time and in conflict with 
its own precedent, that its statute would not apply to cases 
'where the law under which the taxes are assessed and collected is 
itself subsequently declared to be unconstitutional.'"  It was 
this ruling, the Department states, that prompted the United 
States Supreme Court in Reich to use the "bait and switch" 
terminology and to note that "no reasonable taxpayer would have 
read the 'illegally collected' statutory language to exclude 
constitutional decisions." 
 
"Unlike the Georgia law," the Department maintains, "the 
Virginia statute provides in plain language that 'the court may 
order that any amount which has been improperly collected' be 
refunded to the taxpayer."  The Department asserts that "[n]o 
reasonable taxpayer can claim he was misled by the clear and 
unequivocal language of this discretionary statute."  Furthermore, 
the Department says, "unlike the Georgia Court, this Court has not 
'reconfigured' Virginia law by adding a judicial gloss to the 
clear language of § 58.1-1826, or by failing to follow its own 
precedent."  Hence, the Department concludes, "[i]t is clear that 
Reich 
has 
no 
application 
and, 
in 
fact, 
is 
completely 
distinguishable from the litigation in Virginia." 
 
We disagree with the Department.  We think Reich is 
applicable and cannot be distinguished.  If, as Harper contends, 
we have previously interpreted the statutory ancestor of Code 
§ 58.1-1826 as mandating a refund of taxes illegally collected but 
we now adopt, for the first time, the Department's view that a 
refund is discretionary, we certainly will have done what the 
Supreme Court said in Reich a state may not do, that is "to 
reconfigure its scheme, unfairly, in midcourse -- to 'bait and 
switch.'"  513 U.S. at ___, 115 S.Ct at 550. 
 
Harper is correct in saying that we have interpreted the 
statutory ancestor of Code § 58.1-1826 as mandating the refund of 
taxes illegally collected.  Hotel Richmond Corp. v. Commonwealth, 
118 Va. 607, 88 S.E. 173 (1916), involved an interpretation of 
§ 568 of the Code of 1904.  The earlier statute provided as 
follows:  
 
If the court be satisfied that the applicant is 
erroneously assessed with any taxes, and that the 
erroneous assessment was not caused by the failure or 
refusal of the applicant to furnish a list of his 
property, real and personal, to the commissioner, on 
oath, as the law requires; or that the applicant is 
erroneously charged with a license tax, and that the 
erroneous assessment was not caused by the failure or 
refusal of the applicant to furnish the commissioner, on 
oath, with the necessary information, as required by 
law, in either case the court may order that the 
assessment be corrected.  If the assessment exceeds the 
proper amount, the court may order that the applicant be 
exonerated from the payment of so much as is erroneously 
charged, if not already paid, and if paid, that it be 
refunded to him.  If the assessment be less than the 
proper amount, the court shall order that the applicant 
pay the proper taxes. 
 
(Emphasis added.)  The taxpayer, Hotel Richmond, sought refund of 
a license tax it claimed had been erroneously assessed.  The 
Commonwealth defended on the ground that the tax had been paid 
voluntarily.  Responding to the Commonwealth's defense, this Court 
made the following statements: 
 
[W]e [do not] question the well-settled doctrine that a 
voluntary payment of money, under a mistake of law, lays 
no foundation for an action to recover back the money so 
paid.  This principle, however, has, in our opinion, no 
application to a proceeding, like the present, under a 
statute which expressly provides that, when certain 
conditions are complied with, the citizen shall be 
refunded a tax paid by him which was erroneously 
assessed against him. 
 
118 Va. at 610, 88 S.E. at 174.  (Emphasis added.) 
 
The statute in plain terms prescribes the conditions 
upon which the erroneous assessment shall be refunded, 
and it nowhere intimates that if the applicant for 
relief has paid the tax voluntarily he cannot have the 
same refunded. . . .  The plaintiffs in error have 
complied with every requirement of the statute, and are, 
therefore, entitled to have the erroneous license tax 
paid by them . . . refunded. 
 
Id. at 610-11, 88 S.E. at 174.  (Emphasis added.) 
 
The cases . . . cited in support of the contention that 
a tax voluntarily paid cannot be recovered back . . . 
are, in our opinion, not in conflict with the conclusion 
reached in the present case, where the erroneous tax 
which has been paid is restored to the aggrieved citizen 
by virtue of a plain statute, which provides that it 
shall be refunded. 
 
Id. at 611, 88 S.E. at 174.  (Emphasis added.)    
 
The Department dismisses Hotel Richmond as "not on point" 
because the issue in the case was whether voluntary payment of the 
license tax defeated the right to a refund, not whether a refund 
was mandatory.  However, the language in the opinion explaining 
the mandatory nature of the refund statute was part of the 
rationale employed to reach the conclusion that voluntary payment 
does not defeat the right to a refund.  In other words, had the 
Court considered refunds discretionary and not mandatory, the 
clear implication is that voluntary payment would have defeated 
the right to a refund.  Hence, the language dealing with the 
mandatory nature of the refund statute was necessary to the 
Court's decision, and the case is "on point." 
 
It is obvious that the Court in Hotel Richmond treated the 
word "may" in the refund statute as "shall."  This treatment was 
in accordance with the rule that "'[t]he word "may" is prima facie 
permissive, importing discretion, but the courts construe it to be 
mandatory when it is necessary to accomplish the manifest purpose 
of the Legislature.'"  Caputo v. Holt, 217 Va. 302, 305 n.*, 228 
S.E.2d 134, 137 n.* (1976) (quoting Chesapeake & O. Ry. Co. v. 
Pulliam, 185 Va. 908, 916, 41 S.E.2d 54, 58 (1947)).  See also 
Pearson v. Board of Supervisors, 91 Va. 322, 333-34, 21 S.E. 483, 
485 (1895). 
 
The Department says that "[t]he manifest purpose of § 58.1-
1826 is to grant the courts the authority to deny refunds in the 
appropriate case."  We disagree.  We think § 58.1-1826 was enacted 
for a different purpose: 
 
It must be remembered . . . that the [refund] statute is 
remedial, and that its avowed purpose is to provide an 
expeditious and inexpensive remedy for relief against 
taxes which have been erroneously assessed or collected, 
and that remedial statutes are not strictly construed, 
but are given a liberal construction with the view of 
advancing the remedy sought to be applied in accordance 
with the true intent and purpose of the legislature. 
 
Commonwealth v. Smallwood Memorial Inst., 124 Va. 142, 144, 97 
S.E. 805, 806 (1919).  It was to accomplish the manifest purpose 
of the legislature that this Court found it necessary in Richmond 
Hotel to give mandatory effect to the word "may" in § 568 of the 
Code of 1904.  
 
In practical and legal effect, the language of § 568 is 
identical to the wording of present § 58.1-1826, even to the 
extent that the two enactments employ both "may" and "shall."  
Yet, this Court in Hotel Richmond had no difficulty in giving 
mandatory effect to both words in interpreting § 568.  The case 
has remained unchanged as the law of this Commonwealth for almost 
eighty years.  To avoid doing what Reich teaches a state may not 
do, that is, to "bait and switch" by reconfiguring its tax scheme 
midcourse, we reaffirm Hotel Richmond's treatment of the word 
"may" in the tax refund statute as mandatory. 
 
This leaves for decision the question of Reich's effect upon 
the Department's argument that Virginia's declaratory judgment 
action provides taxpayers an adequate and meaningful opportunity 
to withhold contested tax assessments and to challenge their 
validity in a predeprivation hearing and that the Commonwealth is 
not required, therefore, to provide backward-looking relief in the 
form of refunds.  The Department says that the Supreme Court in 
Reich "did not even address the issue of predeprivation remedies." 
 However, the Department overlooks this important passage from the 
Reich opinion: 
 
[T]he Georgia Supreme Court's reliance on Georgia's 
predeprivation procedures was entirely beside the point 
(and 
thus 
error), 
because 
even 
assuming 
the 
constitutional adequacy of these procedures -- an issue 
on which we express no view -- no reasonable taxpayer 
would have thought that they represented, in light of 
the apparent applicability of the refund statute, the 
exclusive remedy for unlawful taxes. 
 
513 U.S. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 550.   
 
Given the clear applicability of Code § 58.1-1826, we are of 
opinion that no reasonable taxpayer would have thought that a 
declaratory judgment proceeding, even assuming its constitutional 
adequacy -- an issue upon which we express no view -- represented 
the exclusive remedy for relief from unlawful taxes in Virginia.  
Accordingly, it would be "entirely beside the point (and thus 
error)," Reich, 513 U.S. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 550, for this Court 
to place any reliance in this case on the Commonwealth's 
declaratory judgment procedure as a means to avoid providing 
meaningful backward-looking relief in the form of refunds. 
 
Alternatively, the Department argues that in addition to the 
predeprivation 
remedy 
of 
declaratory 
judgment, 
the 
Harper 
taxpayers had a second predeprivation remedy available to them in 
the form of an administrative procedure provided by Code §§ 58.1-
1821 and -1822.  The Department prays that, if we do not affirm 
the judgment of the trial court, we remand the case for a 
resolution of the sufficiency of the administrative remedies.  
However, any reliance upon these remedies would be beside the 
point, and thus error, for the same reason that any reliance upon 
the declaratory judgment procedure would be beside the point, and 
thus error.  In view of the clear applicability of Code § 58.1-
1826, no reasonable taxpayer would have thought that the 
administrative procedure represented the exclusive remedy for 
relief from unlawful taxes.  Therefore, we deny the Department's 
prayer. 
 
Finally, the Department argues that, by authorizing the 
refund of only so much of the amount paid as is erroneous or 
improper, Code § 58.1-1826 "commands that any refund ordered must 
be limited to the amount necessary to correct the error (here, the 
difference between the amount that plaintiffs actually paid in 
taxes and the amount they would have paid had the state also taxed 
state pensioners, to be determined in a subsequent evidentiary 
hearing)."  The Department requests that we remand the case for 
such a hearing. 
 
We decline the request.  Harper II teaches that "[i]n 
providing [meaningful backward-looking] relief, a State may either 
award full refunds to those burdened by an unlawful tax or issue 
some other order that 'create[s] in hindsight a nondiscriminatory 
scheme.'"  509 U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2519-20 (quoting 
McKesson, 496 U.S. at 40).  The courts are powerless to impose a 
tax on the state employees whose pension income was exempt prior 
to Davis.  To reduce the amount of the refunds due the Harper 
taxpayers and thus relieve them of only a portion of their 
unlawful tax burden, while leaving the state pensioners entirely 
untaxed for the pre-Davis period, would only create another 
discriminatory scheme.  
 
Giving Reich its full effect, we reach the inevitable 
conclusion that the Harper taxpayers are entitled to full refunds. 
 Accordingly, we will reverse the judgment of the trial court and 
enter final judgment in favor of the Harper taxpayers directing 
that the amounts unlawfully collected from them be refunded, with 
interest as provided in Code § 58.1-1833. 
 
Reversed and final judgment.