Court Opinion

ID: 9788720
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:16:23.524872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:16.203483
License: Public Domain

FABE, Chief Justice,
with whom CARPENETI, Justice, joins, dissenting.
I disagree with the court's conclusion that the uncommitted space in KIC's building is not exempt from borough taxes. In my view, KIC has presented a sufficiently strong federal and tribal interest to allow extension of its tax exemption to temporarily unused spaces.
As the court's opinion recognizes, the United States Supreme Court held in Ramah that questions of implied federal preemption in Indian tax cases require "a particularized examination of the relevant state, federal, and tribal interests."1 Informing the preemption analysis are "the traditional notions of tribal sovereignty, and the recognition and encouragement of this sovereignty in congressional Acts promoting tribal independence and economic development{[.]"2 Relevant federal statutes, therefore, "must be examined in light of 'the broad policies that underlie them and the notions of sovereignty that have developed from historical traditions of tribal independence." "3
Consideration of the federal and tribal interests is the first step of the balancing required by implied federal preemption analysis. The court's opinion concludes that there is no weight at all on this half of the scale because there is not a comprehensive and pervasive federal program dealing with unused spaces. But I believe that the court has unduly narrowed the scope of inquiry. The proper question is whether an Indian tribe that is operating a health care facility under the aegis of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA)4 can be granted reasonable flexibility in extending its tax exemption to temporarily unused spaces in the building-a situation not uncommon in such facilities.
Looking at this broader question, the federal and tribal interests are clear and strong. Provision of Indian health care services is comprehensively and pervasively regulated; this is manifest both in the ISDEAA and in the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (IHCIA).5 Congress expressed its intention in the ISDEAA that those operating under self-determination contracts receive the same amount of funding as would the federal government if one of its departments was still providing the services in question.6 In Ra-*1050moh, the Court found that the burden imposed by the state's taxation impeded "the clearly expressed federal interest in promoting the 'quality and quantity' of educational opportunities for Indians by depleting the funds available for the construction of Indian schools."7 Local taxes on unused spaces could similarly impede the federal interest in promoting Indian health care by reducing the funds available to Indian tribes that have clinic buildings with unoccupied space.8
KIC's counsel argued at the board hearing that "(tlhe intent of KIC for the unused space is still unknown, although there [are] long term plans and strateglies that] include[ ] expansion of their hospital functions into those unused spaces." Allowing KIC the flexibility to maintain tax-exempt open space for expansion or reorganization of health services comports with the federal policy of encouraging tribal sovereignty and promoting tribal independence and economic development.
The state interests constitute the other half of the balancing analysis. In Ramah, the state interest was merely the collection of revenue; the state provided no services to the school being constructed on the reservation.9 The Court determined that this was insufficient to justify the burdens imposed by the tax.10 Here, KGB is providing governmental functions to the KIC building. The opinion accurately compares this provision of services to those in Board of Equalization for the Borough of Ketchikan v. Alaska Native Brotherhood & Sisterhood, Camp No. 14, in which we upheld the Borough's taxing authority.11 The federal and tribal interests in that case, however, were different. There, we only examined whether KIC was exempt from ad valorem taxes under the Indian Reorganization Act,12 under a theory of tribal sovereignty,13 or under a theory of federal instrumentality.14 We concluded that none of these theories had merit,15 in part "because the Borough's interest in generating the revenue from the non-discriminatory tax to pay for services provided to the property exceeds KIC's interest in retaining the revenue to provide governmental programs to its members.16
Here, in contrast, we are addressing clearer and stronger federal and tribal interests as expressed in the ISDEAA and IHCIA, as well as the explicit congressional desire for Indian tribes to have the same funding that the federal government would have to provide health services. Striking the balance between these competing interests is thus more difficult than in Board of Equalization. Given the congressional desire for Indian tribes to have equal funding, the obstacle to that goal that could be presented by allowing Borough taxation of unused spaces in a health care facility, and the policy expressed in Cotton Petroleum Corp. that ambiguities concerning the exemption of tribal interests from taxation should be resolved in favor of the tribe,17 I would conclude that the balance *1051tips in favor of the federal and tribal interests-and thus exemption.
KIC should be granted the flexibility to maintain some unused space in its health services building without sacrificing its tax-exempt status for those spaces.18 According ly, I would affirm the superior court's decision. I therefore respectfully dissent from the court's opinion.

. Op. at 1046; Ramah Navajo Sch. Bd., Inc. v. Bureau of Revenue of N.M., 458 U.S. 832, 838, 102 S.Ct. 3394, 73 L.Ed.2d 1174 (1982).

. Ramah, 458 U.S. at 838, 102 S.Ct. 3394.

. Id. (quoting White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker, 448 U.S. 136, 144-45, 100 S.Ct. 2578, 65 L.Ed.2d 665 (1980)).

. 25 U.S.C. §§ 450-458bbb-2 (2001).

. 25 U.S.C. §§ 1601-1683 (2001).

. 25 U.S.C. § 450j-1(a)(1) (2001); see also Ramah Navajo Sch. Bd., Inc. v. N.M. Taxation & Revenue Dep't, 127 N.M. 101, 977 P.2d 1021, 1033 (N.M.App.1999), cert. denied, 127 N.M. 389, 981 P.2d 1207 (1999), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 928, 120 S.Ct 322, 323, 145 L.Ed.2d 252 (1999) ("Congress has provided that Indian communities will not suffer financially by the transfer of services from the federal government to tribal agencies.... The Act's purpose of providing tribes with the same funding that the federal agency would receive for the same service is undercut if the State imposes a tax that makes performance of the service more expensive for the tribe than for the federal agency.").

. Ramah, 458 U.S. at 842, 102 S.Ct. 3394.

. - Imposing the tax in this case will result in KIC having $12,462.12 less to provide medical services. This effect does not seem compatible with Congress's intent, in enacting the ISDEAA, to see that those operating under self-determination contracts would receive the same amount of funding as would the federal government if one of its departments was still providing the services in question. In addition, imposing a tax on KIC for space that it could have decided to use in the future for clinic space may well foreclose that possibility by creating a present need to generate revenue from the space. This effect seems contrary to the federal interest, evident in the IH-CIA, in promoting Indian health care. See, e.g., 25 U.S.C. § 1601(b) (2001) ("A major national goal of the United States is to provide the quantity and quality of health services which will permit the health status of Indians to be raised to the highest possible level and to encourage the maximum participation of Indians in the planning and management of those services.").

. Ramah, 458 U.S. at 843, 845, 102 S.Ct. 3394.

. - Id. at 845, 102 S.Ct. 3394.

. 666 P.2d 1015 (Alaska 1983).

. 25 U.S.C. § 465 (2001); 666 P.2d at 1018.

. 666 P.2d at 1019.

. Id. at 1022.

. Id. at 1023.

. Id.

. Cotton Petroleum Corp. v. New Mexico, 490 U.S. 163, 177, 109 S.Ct. 1698, 104 LEd.2d 209 (1989).

. Cf. Dist. of Columbia v. Catholic Univ. of Am., 397 A.2d 915, 921-22 (D.C.1979) ("A school the size of Catholic University must have some flexibility in its operation and its exempt status should not be disturbed merely because it elects, for a given period, not to use a given classroom, or portion of a dormitory, or other building. ..."); Our Savior Lutheran Church v. Dep't of Revenue, 204 Ill.App.3d 1055, 150 Ill.Dec. 395, 562 N.E.2d 1198, 1201 (1990) ("We do not think that mere temporary vacancy or lack of use of a portion of an otherwise exempt parcel of property renders that portion taxable. To hold that when a portion of a building otherwise used for an exempt purpose becomes temporarily vacant or unused it loses its exempt status is nonsensical and impractical of application."); United Way of the Midlands v. Douglas County Bd. of Equalization, 215 Neb. 1, 337 N.W.2d 103, 107 (1983) (''The facts here are similar to the not unusual situation of unused rooms in a charitable hospital or in the dormitory of an educational institution. Oftentimes a qualified organization acquires or maintains building space in reasonable anticipation of full occupancy for an exempt purpose but cannot do so because of economic conditions or other legitimate reasons.").