Opinion ID: 1990251
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Due Process Clause Mandates A Meaningful Remedy When Taxes Are Collected in Contravention of Applicable Law.

Text: The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no state may deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. The essence of this guarantee is that citizens must be given an opportunity, at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner, to challenge the legality of the government's impositions. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976). Payment of a tax constitutes a deprivation of property, and the United States Supreme Court has held that to satisfy the requirements of the Due Process Clause, the taxing jurisdiction, the state in this case, must provide either predeprivation or postdeprivation procedural safeguards. McKesson Corporation v. Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, 496 U.S. 18, 110 S.Ct. 2238, 110 L.Ed.2d 17 (1990). Furthermore, where the state, as did Kentucky at the time these taxes were collected, requires or encourages its citizens to rely upon a postdeprivation refund action, that action must provide taxpayers with, not only a fair opportunity to challenge the accuracy and legal validity of their tax obligation, but also a `clear and certain remedy,' ... for any erroneous or unlawful tax collection to ensure that the opportunity to contest the tax is a meaningful one. Id. at 39, 110 S.Ct. 2238 (quoting from Atchison, T. & S.F.R. Co. v. O'Connor, 223 U.S. 280, 32 S.Ct. 216, 56 L.Ed. 436 (1912)). The state may not, moreover, `hold[ing] out what plainly appears to be a clear and certain postdeprivation remedy and then declare, only after the disputed taxes have been paid, that no such remedy exists.' Newsweek, Inc. v. Florida Department of Revenue, 522 U.S. 442, 444, 118 S.Ct. 904, 139 L.Ed.2d 888 (1998) (quoting from Reich v. Collins, 513 U.S. 106, 108, 115 S.Ct. 547, 130 L.Ed.2d 454 (1994)). This, of course, is precisely what KRS 141.200(17) purports to do, and accordingly the Court of Appeals correctly determined that that statute violates the Due Process Clause.