Opinion ID: 2616600
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Deference to the legislature

Text: As noted above, the Department argues that this case is easily solved by reading A.R.S. § 42-705(C) in conjunction with § 42-162(A)(7)(c), the classification statute, to find that the legislature intended to create two separate classes of flight property based on the systemwide average passenger or payload capacity of the airline company owning the property. There is some authority for judicial recognition of such implied classifications. See Trico, 151 Ariz. at 549, 729 P.2d at 903. We are not eager, of course, to find classifications that the legislature has not expressly created. See Hayes v. Continental Ins. Co., 178 Ariz. 264, 272, 872 P.2d 668, 676 (1994) ([W]e are reluctant to interpret a statute in favor of ... preemption... if there is any reasonable doubt about the legislature's intent.). This is certainly as true when creating tax classifications as in recognizing preemptions. Making classifications for taxation is, in the first instance, a political exercise. The power to classify is legislative. Apache County, 106 Ariz. at 359, 476 P.2d at 660; People's Finance, 44 Ariz. at 445, 38 P.2d at 645. Thus, as to the creation of future classes for taxation purposes, we will not imply classifications that the legislature has not expressed. [6] Even were we to agree with the Department's contention, however, and conclude that the legislature intended to make separate classifications in the present case, the argument misses the ultimate issue  and the first question on which we granted certification: whether the constitution permits the legislature to make the classification in question. With the greatest deference to the legislature, and agreeing with the Department that the legislature must have great leeway in taxation, the constitution's uniformity clause was obviously meant to restrict the legislature's power to tax. Apache County, 106 Ariz. at 359, 476 P.2d at 660. If there is no restriction on the power to classify, there is no restriction on the power to tax, and the constitution's uniformity clause would have no meaning. This is a result we cannot condone. Under our constitution, the power to classify and impose differing taxation rates is legislative, but the responsibility to enforce the constitution's limits is judicial. We conclude, therefore, that the classification the Department claims was made in the present case by § 42-705(C) violates the uniformity clause of art. 9, § 1, insofar as it creates unequal ad valorem tax rates for property with the same physical characteristics, used in the same industry for similar purposes. In reaching this conclusion, we merely follow our line of cases from the early days of statehood, that classifications for taxation purposes must be real, not fanciful, and based on the nature of the property or on some other real difference in its use, utility, or productivity. We neither overrule nor disapprove Apache County and Trico, in which we upheld classifications based on differences between the industries in which the property was employed and the uses to which the property was put. [7] Thus, identical or similar property put to different uses or used for the same purpose in different industries may be put in different classifications. However, similar property used in the same industry for the same purpose cannot be classified differently for ad valorem taxation simply because of the size, wealth, or location of its owner. Probably the framers would have preferred a less elastic uniformity clause, but we do not now write on a clean slate. In Apache County and Trico, we expanded the limits of the uniformity clause, but, to quote the song, we have gone about as fer as [we] can go. In this case, we conclude that we can go no further without writing the uniformity clause out of the constitution.