Opinion ID: 1441401
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: Section 44-18-30(30), entitled Bibles, provides that no state sales tax shall be due [f]rom the sale and from the storage, use, or other consumption in the state of any canonized scriptures of any tax exempt nonprofit religious organization including but not limited to the Old Testament and the New Testament versions. However, in 1989, the United States Supreme Court rendered its decision in Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U.S. 1, 109 S.Ct. 890, 103 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989). There, the Court held that a Texas sales-tax exemption for bibles and other religious literature was unconstitutional. In response to Texas Monthly, the tax administrator promulgated regulation SU 92-136. [1] This regulation purports to subject bibles and other canonized scriptures to the Rhode Island sales tax, notwithstanding the contrary mandate of § 44-18-30(30). Thus, regulation SU 92-136 leaves Rhode Island booksellers and book buyers at sea over whether the sales of bibles and other canonized scriptures are subject to the sales tax. The plaintiffs comprise both commercial retailers and consumers of various types of publications, including religious literature that is subject to the statutory exemption. As a result of the regulation, however, plaintiffs have been left to determine at their own peril whether a state sales tax is due on their respective sales and purchases of bibles and other canonized scriptures. They petitioned the tax administrator for a definitive ruling as to whether the regulation or the statute would apply to their transactions in such literature. In response, the tax administrator communicated his inability to resolve the alleged constitutional infirmity of the statute as applied to each plaintiff. He simply emphasized the applicability of the regulation, leaving any constitutional determination of the statutory exemption's validity to a later judicial resolution. Unsatisfied with the tax administrator's answer and still uncertain about whether to collect and/or to pay sales taxes on the purchase of bibles and other canonized scriptures, plaintiffs then filed a complaint in the District Court seeking injunctive relief and a declaration of their rights with respect to the constitutionality of § 44-18-30(30). After reviewing Texas Monthly, the District Court took note of several cases that were decided in its wake before concluding that the § 44-18-30(30) exemption violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution. The District Court, however, denied plaintiffs' request for injunctive relief because it believed that the continuing viability of regulation SU 92-136 in the aftermath of § 44-18-30(30)'s demise effectively granted the injunctive relief requested by plaintiffs. In other words, after the District Court struck down the statute, the validated existence of the regulation untrammeled by a contrary statutory exemptionindicated that the tax administrator would not attempt to enforce the exemptions set forth in § 44-18-30(30). Thus, the sale of such publications would continue to be taxable pursuant to the regulation. We have reviewed the statute at issue and the relevant case law with respect to this type of an exemption from state sales taxation, and we are of the opinion that § 44-18-30(30) is indeed unconstitutional. We reach this result, however, not on Establishment Clause grounds, but because we conclude that the tax exemption is inconsistent with the pronouncements of the United States Supreme Court concerning the free-press guaranty embodied in the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution.