Opinion ID: 2539248
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: introduction

Text: First, do no harma fundamental precept of medicineneeds to be applied to this judicial decision, which may cause unnecessary harm to Missouri's law that freely grants standing to taxpayers to challenge governmental spending. In determining that the taxpayer plaintiffs did not show that the tax credits in this case are an expenditure of public fundswhich they arethe principal opinion takes the liberty, unnecessarily in my view, of distorting Missouri's case law on standing. Although the principal opinion and Judge Stith's concurring opinion leave the door open to get the law right in some future case, there is no principled reason not to get the law right in this case, orat the very leastto leave the law of standing undisturbed. The principal opinion faults the taxpayer plaintiffs for not asking the Court in a separate point relied on to extend the standing doctrine to cover challenges to tax credit expenditures. But the taxpayers here properly rely on Curchin v. Mo. Indust. Dev. Bd., 722 S.W.2d 930 (Mo. banc 1987), which held that that tax credits granted to a private party are indistinguishable from expenditures of public funds. Although Curchin, as is true of other taxpayer cases, did not expressly address the standing issue, Curchin applied the same analysis to tax credit expenditures as to other spending of public funds. There is no need to extend taxpayer standing to tax credit casesthe law already is there. That said, I concur in the result of the principal opinion, because I believe that spending public funds through transferable tax credits under section 99.1205which is done in conjunction with the city government for redevelopment in north St. Louisis acceptable because, under Missouri cases, the expenditure is for a public purpose. The standards for what is a public purpose are so lax that one has to wonder why the majority would invoke the doctrine of standingwhich could have the effect of cutting off all challenges to the expenditure of the public funds through tax credit programs. The damage to the law from calling this an expenditure for a public purpose is minimal; the damage the principal opinion does to the law by invoking standing poses substantial problems for Missouri law and the proper role of the state's courts. Let us remember: First, do no harm. The law of taxpayer standing is crucial to ensuring government accountability under the Missouri Constitution. The majority should have left it alone.