Opinion ID: 1932230
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Claims Under Old Section 112

Text: The first point need not detain us. Suffice it to say that Taxpayers present a powerful case that H.B. 388 fails under unamended, pre-1983 Section 112 on at least two fronts. First, H.B. 388 violates the uniformity and equality clause, see, Washington County Board of Supervisors v. Greenville Mill, 437 So.2d 401, 403 (Miss. 1983) and State Tax Commission v. Fondren, 387 So.2d 712, 723-24 (Miss. 1980). Old Section 112 did not allow the sort of pretended exemption plus in-lieu tax provided in H.B. 388. See Chicago Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company v. Robertson, 122 Miss. 417, 84 So. 449 (1920); see also Ethridge, Mississippi Constitution 227, 336-40 (1928). Second, H.B. 388 violates old Section 112 in that it denies Claiborne County the power to tax Grand Gulf which is and ought be taxable property of that county. On this latter point, we regard Brennan v. Mississippi Home Insurance Company, 70 Miss. 531, 13 So. 228 (1893) as incorrectly decided and of quite dubious precedential value. But Section 112 has been amended. There is no need to consider further the serious constitutional questions here presented unless and until we determine H.B. 388 unconstitutional under Section 112 as it now reads, the matter to which we now turn.