Opinion ID: 1849888
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Unclassified Intangible Personal Property

Text: In considering whether the agreements are obligations for money, the majority has wholly ignored State ex rel. Weinberg v. Green, 132 So.2d 761 (Fla. 1961). That case required a construction of the phrase obligation to pay money, virtually the same statutory language we now have under review, for purposes of applying the documentary stamp tax laws to an agreement for deed identical to the one before us. In holding that the tax did not apply the Court there said: Under no circumstances could the agreement for deed be construed as an `obligation to pay money', because Section 7 thereof, among other things, provides that it impose no personal liability `as against the buyer or any subsequent purchaser from the buyer, or any beneficiary for whom they may be acting, it being the understanding of the parties that the seller will look only to the land itself for payment of the balance of the purchase price.' [8] While I do not agree that the absence of personal liability obviates the creation of a legally enforceable obligation to pay money, the Weinberg case would appear to require the imposition of an annual one mill levy on this unclassified intangible personal property. The only difference I detect between that case and this one is not in the reasoning, since both are tax statutes with identical verbiage applied to documents of identical legal effect, but in the result. In Weinberg the Court's construction of the phrase resulted in an exemption from tax. In this case the same construction would result in imposition of tax. Either Weinberg should be overruled or deemed controlling. [9]