out tax on railroads ok property tax ok because we know the supreme court in the a c f majority expressed grave reservation with that and we had it what provision would and recognizing that possibility was talking about before yes i think they were thinking it could violate before if no other taxpayers paid a property tax and only real roads or perhaps some small group of of targeted companies also had a property in as alarm property tax or no other tax cuts so that's where the before would come in i do think that for example if there was a situation like that statutory argument if it violates four in our hypothetical right the your your main argument that before has absolutely nothing to do with property taxes seems defeated to me yet i mean it  not been recognized by the supreme court would you think are sort inform how broadly someone is going to interpret before when the language is it's another tax and it's different from the taxes in the one hundred and thirty three that it should inform the taxes including real tangible personal and intangible personal property apply only to railroads yes i think it would be if as under this carson burlington northern vs not an apartment revenue the calculation is the taxes paid by the railroads divided by the total tax levies so there were two possible definitions the court held out there one was personal personal property tax i'm sorry forgive me are you responding yes to my question well i am forgetting whether it's phrased as a positive or negative whether i should answer yes or no i think i would have either all property tax  court allow discrimination in the extreme and the court was saying no it doesn't and that if such a situation would arise where a state exempted all other property from the tax levy then perhaps then you could fall into before it's a singular case as a support recognized in burlington northern and we think it's really not a practical reality that that will ever happen given the state's dependence on property taxes and the vastly superior amount of property that's going by commercial industrial taxpayers as compared to railroads state and we think that's why subsection before doesn't need to apply to property taxes that the one through b three the protections are property for example specifically saying you have to tax and tangible personal property for railroads and commercial industrial taxpayers could have done that that it's not a comparison between the tax property commercial industrial and all property of railroad showing that congress wasn't concerned about property that states decided not to tax owned by commercial industrial taxpayers that's the case as a complaint about wisconsin not  taxing that property for commercial industrial owners but testing it for real roads we feel the spall squarely in the general rule of a c f industries and that's really what you gov not like expanded exceptions so let it swallows the rule because respect to intangible personal property specifically no but burlington northern are your are ninety five decisions where you're talking yes i mean it certainly can't that can erase the the singling out exception right nor did it purport f and what i what i really wonder about from burlington northern is whether you know the measurement aspect of burlington northern is really on all is and it is on sound footing after the supreme court's decision that before you know i know that's your st argument but suppose but suppose we get into measuring right and if you you would say well if you're going to if you're going to allow this to sit with him before and then we're going to move to measurement you want to machinery is exempt and union pacific says well you can't tax machinery you're you're giving an exemption to the commercial industrial taxpayers and if you use the denominator of what's a tax on machinery it's going to be railroads bur like a high proportion of that tax because the commercial industrial don't pay it so i think through that analysis you might end up where you know all tax exemptions have to apply to railroads that you are giving to other taxpayers which is conflicting with of the tax levy perhaps up to ten percent or so if you kind of do this apples and oranges comparison of their total tax versus everyone else's personal property tax so we c course suggested in kansas city southern that before may be the only way that a railroad can attack a targeted property types i'd like to get next to a c f i'm not sure what and you know we had we had no issue with that because because of the way the exemptions were working so let's get back before part of the how do you respond to mr aquino point about you know the fact the matter is this is the product of an responsible but what judge rather was talking about there to a class is a property in wisconsin there understands there's real property there's tangible personal property and there's sentential personal property and what they hailed as t chapter seventy taxpayers that was not a utility case it was after seventy general tax payers as to those taxpayers of wisconsin has chosen to tax only go a property and only tatchell personal property the legislature is that that and an intangible property tax doesn't ask to chapter seventy six dollars taxpayers and they and the only people paying one hundred percent of the intangible personal property tax in  oregon case of tangible personal property that that's not what we have we don't have any percentages to that to food with other than a one hundred percent tax on railroads as a railroad and they're paying the that's the challenge tax then you look at how other commercial industrial tax payers are treated on that tax on intangibles that's the way the a circuit allies that they are that's the way the term circuit and a and that's the way the court below and the last which we think is correct otherwise you can scuttle before completely by saying well as long as you've got a tax on some you know if you tax bicycles then ok then you've got a generally applicable tax and you can target the railroads and that can't be what the supreme court thought it was allowing to do in the a we're talking about this specific class of property you compare to how that class of property is treated in the hands of other other commercial and also not tax breaks so this tax on intangible personal property under or the other three categories that the speaker tax payers so i think it is well that the courts i think these courts right the courts have to uniformly rejected what the deal are saying in this c that that that if you look at the the property tax as a whole and not the specific class of property this thing challenged because otherwise you can just have this right the act if you if you don't if you don't get was what was going on in iowa in connection with custom computer software was that the railroads were singled out for tax hikes while it leaving untaxed most of the personal property of every kind and all the intangible property of the i don't mean targeted by they get together in a smoky room and say we're going to get the railroads what i'm talking about these bees are taxes that isolate the railroads from the from the universe of other commercial just the taxpayers if there's one thing that the property has property that's taxed so that i'm tax property just isn't considered and doesn't really matter whether that's through an exemption or through like eight it just like for some reason it's like not in the scope of the tax for or after it's about whether it's