Title: Stajkowski v. Carbon County Board
Citation: 518 Pa. 150, 541 A.2d 1384
Docket Number: N/A
State: Pennsylvania
Issuer: Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Date: May 20, 1988

518 Pa. 150 (1988) 541 A.2d 1384 Father Leo STAJKOWSKI, Appellant, v. CARBON COUNTY BOARD OF ASSESSMENT AND REVISION OF TAXES, Chief Assessor of Carbon County, Appellee. Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Argued January 19, 1988. Decided May 20, 1988. *151 Philip J. Murren, Harrisburg, Stephen Peter Vlossak, Sr., Jim Thorpe, for appellant. Joseph J. Velitsky, City Sol., for appellee. Before NIX, C.J., and FLAHERTY, McDERMOTT, ZAPPALA and PAPADAKOS, JJ. FLAHERTY, Justice. Father Leo Stajkowski, the appellant, challenges the Carbon County occupation tax levied against him, claiming it burdens his free exercise of religion in violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. We agree. The taxing authorities of Carbon County, pursuant to 72 Pa.S. § 5453.101 et seq., have enacted an occupation tax. The tax is administered by valuing approximately 300 trades and occupations, then levying a tax calculated at a percentage of the value assigned to the occupation. Values assigned to various occupations ranged from a high of $1200 for brewers to a low of $30 for widows, incapacitated cripples, invalids, students, and aged, disabled and unemployed persons. Other classifications included a value of $1000 assigned to judges, surgeons, and wholesale drug dealers, $400 for salesmen, $250 for clergymen, $100 for salesladies, and $50 for housewives and domestics. Father Stajkowski is a Roman Catholic priest who served as pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Palmerton, Carbon *152 County, Pennsylvania. His ecclesiastical duties included both religious and secular aspects. As a religious leader he carried out the ministry of his church by presiding at liturgical celebrations, administering sacraments, counseling, teaching, and preaching. He was also responsible for management of real estate and business affairs of the parish. He received an annual salary of $5700 and occasional gratuities for his offices at religious ceremonies. Carbon County commissioners levied a tax on the value of all enumerated occupations at the rate of seventeen mills for the year 1982, resulting in the imposition of a $4.25 tax on the appellant as a clergyman. He appealed to the county board of assessment and revision of taxes, to the court of common pleas, then to the Commonwealth Court, 101 Pa. Cmwlth. 207, 515 A.2d 1035, all of which upheld the tax against the appellant's First Amendment challenge. We granted review to insure that the taxing authority has not placed an impermissible burden on the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the Constitution. The disputed tax was enacted on the authority of 72 Pa.S. § 5453.201(b), which provides: The tax is a true occupation tax, where "the amount of the levy varies with the assessed value of a particular mode of *153 employment." Danyluk v. Bethlehem Steel Co., 406 Pa. 427, 429-30, 178 A.2d 609, 610 (1962). The power of the state to tax occupations in this fashion has consistently been upheld since 1857 against a variety of constitutional challenges. Crosson v. Downington Area School District, 440 Pa. 468, 270 A.2d 377 (1970); Saulsbury v. Bethlehem Steel Co., 413 Pa. 316, 196 A.2d 664 (1964); Gaugler v. City of Allentown, 410 Pa. 315, 189 A.2d 264 (1963); Danyluk v. Bethlehem Steel Co., 406 Pa. 427, 178 A.2d 609 (1962); Banger's Appeal, 109 Pa. 79 (1885); Miller v. Kirkpatrick, 29 Pa. 226 (1857); Reizes v. Weller, 95 Pa.Cmwlth. 120, 504 A.2d 971 (1986); Commonwealth, Department of Transportation v. Hepler, 2 Pa.Cmwlth. 516, 279 A.2d 93 (1971). The tax on the occupation itself is distinguishable from an income tax so long as the value of each occupation is measured not by actual economic return, but by social status, historical attributes, the type and quantity of work required, degree of education and training demanded, and other such real or fancied social and economic distinctions. Crosson v. Downington Area School District, 440 Pa. at 477, 270 A.2d at 381. In Miller v. Kirkpatrick, supra, this Court considered virtually the same issue presented in this appeal. The question in Miller was whether an occupation tax could be levied against a clergyman, though the challenge was based on the Pennsylvania Constitution's principle of total and entire separation of church and state rather than the federal First Amendment free exercise clause. It was argued in Miller that a minister held his office "by divine appointment of God himself, and he therefore owes no tribute or allegiance to the state," and to tax his occupation "would tend to a union of church and state, and would be unconstitutional." 29 Pa. at 229. The tax act in Miller, similar to the ordinance in the present case, declared that "all offices, posts of profit, professions, trades, and occupations . . . shall be valued and assessed, and subject to taxation." Id. at 229. Though the tax was an occupation tax, the Miller Court focused on the salary earned by the clergyman. Id. at 230 (emphasis in original). Such an analysis justifies a tax on the income of a minister, but not on the occupation itself. Subsequent to the 1857 Miller decision, the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution was enacted, with the effect, inter alia, of making the First Amendment applicable to the states. Under the First Amendment, it is unconstitutional to make any law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The free exercise clause prohibits Carbon County's tax on Father Stajkowski's calling.[1] We base this conclusion primarily on two decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. In Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105, 63 S. Ct. 870, 87 L. Ed. 1292 (1943), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a license tax on the privilege of soliciting within a municipality, when applied to religious colporteurs disseminating religious beliefs through the sale of books and pamphlets from house to house, as an infringement on the freedom of religion. That Court stated: Id. at 112-13, 63 S. Ct. at 874-75, 87 L. Ed. at 1298 (citations omitted; emphasis added). One year after Murdock, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Follett v. McCormick, 321 U.S. 573, 64 S. Ct. 717, 88 L. Ed. 938 (1944). The case again involved a license tax on a seller of religious books, but he was a resident rather than an itinerant, and he earned his living by the sale of books. The issue was "whether a flat license tax as applied to one who earns his livelihood as an evangelist or preacher in his home town is constitutional." Id. at 576, 64 S. Ct. at 719, 88 L. Ed. at 940. The tax was held to be unconstitutional, based on the following rationale: Id. at 576-78, 64 S. Ct. at 719, 88 L. Ed. at 940-41. This reasoning applies precisely to the occupation tax levied upon Father Stajkowski as well as to the license tax at issue in Murdock and Follett, supra. By levying a tax on the occupation of clergyman, Carbon County has violated the appellant's First Amendment rights. Accordingly, the order of the Commonwealth Court is reversed. ZAPPALA and STOUT, JJ., did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case. [1] Appellant has raised no claim based on the Pennsylvania Constitution.