OFFICE OF ‘YE3 ATTGBNEY GEX~RAL OF TJ3XAS 

AUSTIN 

Gerald C. Xann 

Attorney General 

Honorable Weaver Moore, Chairman 

committee on State Affaira 

The Senate 

Auatln, Texas 

Dear Sir: 

0FiniOI.l No. o-3286 

herConstltutlonality of Senate 

IX11 X0. iub ‘~Xxemp’cYng puperty or Delta Kappa Gamma 

Society rmm taxation) 

You asked the opinion or this department as to 

the oonetitutionalltp of Senate Bill No, LO8, pending before your Comnlttee of the Forty-seventh Legislature. The 

Ioaption of this Bill, whloh, for the purposes ot thie 

opinion, will auffiolently indioate the nature thereof, 

is a8 r0ih7et 

ua BIIL 

M BE ENTITLED 

AN ACT exempting iron all City, County, 

and State ad valorem and oocupatlon 

taxes, offioe or headquarter8 buildings, and lots purchased for the 

erection of offloe or headquarters 

buildings, in the State of T xas, 

propertx owned by the Delta happa 

~l~umeSooistp; providing a saving 

; and deolaring an energenoy.” 

Artiole VIII, Seotion 2, of our Constitution, provides In part as follows: 

n The Legislature may, by general laws, 

exempt’fAA taxation pub110 property used for 

public purposes; aotual places 0r reliQioua worship, also any property owned by a ohuroh or by 

a strkc:ly religious aooisty for the exolueive 

uee as a dwelling plaoe for the ministry oi suoh 

ohuroh or religious soolety, and which yields 
Honorable Waver Moors, Page 2 

no revenur whatever to suoh ohuroh or religious 

soolotyi provided that ruoh exemption shall not 

extend to more property than Is reasonably neoesrary for a dwelling place and ln no event to 

more than one aore of land1 plaors of burial 

not held for private or oorporate profit; sll 

buildings urod rxoluslvely and owned by persons 

or aasooiatlons of persons for sohool purposes 

and the neossrary furniture of all rohoole and 

property used oxolusively and reasonably nroessary In oonduotlng any awooiatlon engaged in 

promoting the religious, eduoationsl and phyaioal development of boys, girls, young men or 

young women operating under a state or national 

organization of like oharaoter; also the endowment funds of such institutions of learning and 

religion not used with a view to profit; and 

when the same are invested In bonds or mortgages, 

or in land or other property which has been and 

shall hereafter be bought in by euoh’ institutions or foreclosure sales made to satlery or 

proteot such bonds or mortgages, that such exemptions of suoh land ald property shall continue 

only for two years after the purohase of ths 

same at such sale by suoh institutions and no 

longer, snd Institutions of purely publio oharlty; and all laws exempting .property from taxation other than the property above meutloned 

shall be. null and void. * 

It is to be observed that the authority is oonferred upon the Logirlature to exempt property from taxation only with respeot to property of the character and 

devoted to the purposes expliolty mentioned in Artiole 

VIII, Section 2, of the Constitution, and, by express provision of the Constitution, such exemptions may be conferred only by general laws. The Act which you present 

for our oonsideration sinD$Les out a particular organization by name, to-wit, the Delta Kappa Canma Sooiety, and 

attempts to confer upon its property an exemption rr0m taxation. It requires no oitation af authority to establish 

the proposition that a law which singles out a Tartlcular 

organization or person by name is a special law, not a 

general law. For this reason, you are advised that senate 

Bill No. 108 violates the grovlsions of Article VIII, 

Section 2, of our Constitution. 
. 

Honorablr Wsaver Moore, Page S 

This opinion Is not to be oonatrusd as an expression by thlr department that organizations of thb 

oharaoter, generally, of the Delta Kappa Gamma Soolety 

may be, by general law, exempt from taxation under the 

provisions of Artlole VIII, Seotlon 2 ot the Constitution. 

By reason oi the dirporltion herelnsbove made of Senate 

Bill No. 108, we find it unneoeesary to express an oplnIon at this time upon the question of the authority of . 

the Legislature to exempt from taxation the property of 

organizations of the type of Delta Kappa Gamma, by general 

law. 

Yours very truly 

A!ll’ORNEY GFXEXUL OF TEXAS 

By /s/ R. W. Fairchild 

3. W. Falrohild 

Assistant 

RWF:I& 

‘APPROVED MAR 5, 1941 

/a/ Gerald C. Mann 

ATTCRWBY GZ?ERALOF TEXAS 

APF’ROVXD OPRKtOH CObUITl’EE BY B. C. B. CHAIRUN