Opinion ID: 2539248
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Taxpayers' Right to Complain

Text: The prediction in Judge Wolff's concurrence that today's holding will result in a taxpayer not having a right of recourse if he disagrees with the legislature's decision to issue tax credits is an exaggeration. Our system of government provides for checks and balances whereby taxpayers can hold public officials accountable for their acts. Taxpayers always retain the power at the ballot box to remove elected officials who support unpopular tax credits. And taxpayers, through the initiative process, may propose a law or an amendment to our state constitution to prohibit the issuance of tax credits. See Mo. Const. art. III, sec. 49 (The people reserve power to propose and enact or reject laws and amendments to the constitution by the initiative, independent of the general assembly. . . .). To illustrate its concern that taxpayers do not have a remedy, Judge Wolff's concurrence forecasts that if tax credits are not considered public money, then taxpayers would not have standing to challenge the legislature's establishment of a tax credit program to help build new churches. The parties do not make this argument, nor is there any evidence in the record that the legislature ever has granted churches or other religious institutions tax credits. This Court does not rule on hypotheticals or speculative issues not raised by the case. This is a false alarm because it is unlikely that the legislature would set up such a tax credit program in the future for churches because religious institutions typically are exempt from taxes. See, e.g., section 137.100(5) (providing property tax exemption for property ordinarily used for religious purposes); section 144.030.2(19) (providing sales tax exemption for sales made by or to religious institutions). As tax credits lower tax liability, they are given to entities or persons who meet eligibility requirements and have potential liability such as redevelopers here, as opposed to churches, which have no potential tax liability. Any tax credit for religious institutions is pointless. Further, Judge Wolff's concurrence's attempt to distinguish types of tax credits is irrelevant to standing. Although this concurrence implies that some tax credits are good and others are not, it is not clear from a standing viewpoint, as opposed to a policy viewpoint, whether there is any difference. All tax credits are intended to encourage private citizens or entities to spend their own money on a particular project to improve the lives of the public, while avoiding the need to spend public money. Whether tax credits are a good idea or improve the lives of the public is a different issue, and taxpayers retain the power to challenge the issuance of tax credits as mentioned above. This Court's opinion does nothing to constrain the taxpayers' right to use the courts to challenge the expenditure of public money if it is being spent on matters that the constitution forbids or on projects that have no public purpose.