Opinion ID: 1192606
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Retirement Benefits Exempt from Taxation

Text: In 1945, the legislature established a public employees' retirement system. In 1953, the legislature enacted a mature statutory system and plan for public employee retirement. Those statutes provided that the rights to a pension would become vested after a period of successfully working for the state or local government. They expressly provided that those rights should not be subject to taxation at any level from any government in the state or its political subdivisions. In 1969, the legislature changed and strengthened the wording concerning the statutory promise that rights under the plan and system would never be subject to state or local taxes. The promise of tax exemption was not only applicable to taxes heretofore imposed, but was extended to cover all taxes hereafter imposed by state or local government. Or Laws 1969, ch 640, § 13. The 1953 tax exemption, as refined by the 1969 language, has thus continued to the present day, and is now found in ORS 238.445(1) (formerly numbered ORS 237.201), where it was placed by a reorganization and renumbering of the public employee retirement system statutes by the 1995 legislature. [2]