Opinion ID: 852846
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Local laws providing for the assessment and collection of taxes

Text: Article IV, Section 22 provides a list of subjects as to which local or special laws are prohibited. Among these are laws providing for the assessment and collection of taxes.... The State argues that Section 22 does not apply to the statutes in question here because the Section is written in the conjunctive, prohibiting local laws that provide for the assessment and collection of taxes. Because there is no collection aspect to these laws, the State contends Section 22 is inapplicable. We do not agree. The constitutional debates make clear that lack of uniform assessment practices was one of the principal concerns underlying both Article X, Section 1, and Article IV, Section 22. See, e.g., Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the Convention for the Revision of the Constitution of the State of Indiana, Vol. II at 1290 (1850), where Douglass Maguire, a delegate from Marion County, finding great inequality in the assessment and taxation of property, called for checks upon county assessors through a Board of Equalization to value all real property on an equal basis. Although and is normally taken as conjunctive, it may be read as disjunctive if the context makes clear that is the legislative intent. See, e.g., State v. Myers, 146 Ind. 36, 38, 44 N.E. 801, 801-02 (1896); Brook v. State, 448 N.E.2d 1249, 1251 (Ind.Ct.App.1983). We think the history of Section 22 makes clear that it was addressed to local laws dealing with either assessment of property or collection of taxes, or both. Section 22 had no counterpart in the 1816 Constitution and appeared for the first time in the Indiana Constitution as a result of the 1851 Constitutional Convention. It was the product of widespread dissatisfaction with the large number of laws passed by the legislature in the early days of this State dealing with purely local subjects. Many of these imposed or authorized local taxes for specific projects, typically roads or schools. Others addressed a variety of other special and local interests, even granting divorces. To assess property is to value it. Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 69 (10th ed.1993). To assess a tax is to impose it. Id. Thus, as a matter of syntax, Section 22's reference to laws providing for the assessment and collection of taxes may be read to deal only with laws passed for the imposition or collection of taxes, and not the valuation of property for tax purposes. However, in State v. Hoovler, 668 N.E.2d 1229 (Ind.1996), we addressed a claim that Section 22 prohibited a statute raising the maximum local county option income tax rate to 1 .25% in Tippecanoe County from the 0.7% rate applicable statewide. The effect was to permit county authorities to adopt an additional 0.55% local income tax. After a review of the historical roots of Section 22, this Court held that this statute, though a local law, did not violate Section 22 because it did not authorize any new property valuations or changes in the system of tax gathering. Id. at 1233. The authorization of an increase in the rate of an existing tax was not the assessment and collection of a tax. Indeed, we specifically referred to a dictionary of the time, noting that assessment includes valuation of property... for purpose of taxation. Id. Hoovler thus made clear that local laws dealing with assessment of property for tax purposes were prohibited by Section 22. This is of course consistent with the history of Section 22, as variations in assessment procedures were the most frequently cited reasons for the need for constitutional limits on local legislation. Accordingly, we agree with plaintiffs that these provisions constitute special legislation providing for the assessment and collection of taxes, and therefore violate Article IV, Section 22 of the Indiana Constitution. For the reasons explained in Parts III and IV, however, the reassessments conducted under these statutes are not invalid by reason of this flaw in the statutes.