Opinion ID: 1944996
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

Text: The appellants contend that by the exemption here involved, the State of Maryland has deprived them of the equal protection of the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment and that the criterion for the distinction is discriminatory and not justifiable under the Amendment. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that state exemptions of a class from taxation not clearly unreasonable do not infringe the equal protection clause. In Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U.S. 495, 509 (1937), Mr. Justice Stone said, for the Court: It is inherent in the exercise of the power to tax that a state be free to select the subjects of taxation and to grant exemptions. Neither due process nor equal protection imposes upon a state any rigid rule of equality of taxation    This Court has repeatedly held that inequalities which result from a singling out of one particular class for taxation or exemption infringe no constitutional limitation. In Gibbons v. District of Columbia, 116 U.S. 404, 407-08 (1886), Archbishop Gibbons had appealed from a decree dismissing his bill in equity which claimed that the assessment and tax on lots owned by a Catholic church in the City of Washington were in violation of an Act of Congress which exempted from taxation church buildings and grounds actually occupied by such buildings. A similar exemption had been in effect under authority delegated by Congress as early as 1802. The lots in question, the Court found on the uncontroverted facts, were unnecessary for the enjoyment of the church and were to be sold or leased. The Court held that, under the circumstances, the lots were not exempt from taxation. However, Mr. Justice Gray, in delivering the Court's opinion, said that the power of Congress functioning as a local legislature for the District of Columbia to levy taxes for District purposes only in like manner as the legislature of a State may tax the people of a State for State purposes was clear and that [i]n the exercise of this power, Congress, like any State legislature unrestricted by constitutional provisions, may at its discretion wholly exempt certain classes of property from taxation, or may tax them at a lower rate than other property. In Bell's Gap R.R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 134 U.S. 232, 237 (1890), the Court said: The provision in the Fourteenth Amendment, that no State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, was not intended to prevent a State from adjusting its system of taxation in all proper and reasonable ways. It may, if it chooses, exempt certain classes of property from any taxation at all, such as churches, libraries and the property of charitable institutions. The statements in Gibbons and Bell's Gap as to the validity of exemptions of church property from taxation are dicta, and in neither case was the applicability of the First Amendment, through the Fourteenth, considered. Apart, however, from the possible impact of the First Amendment, it is evident to us that, under the subsection, all organizations having beliefs about religion are treated uniformly as a class, and that the exemption here involved does not violate the equal protection clause.