Court Opinion

ID: 9794541
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:07:47.154751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:17:48.641636
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frantz
dissenting:
I differ with the majority view that 1960 Perm. Supp. C.R.S., Section 123-3-1, imposes a tax on game and fish lands of the state in contravention of Article X, Section 4, of the Constitution of Colorado. In my opinion, the statute is not a tax measure. It is simply a device enacted by the General Assembly by which a transposition of funds is to be effected.
In essence, the legislature has created a channel by which a certain portion of the game and fish funds may be transferred to the county treasurers of the sev*315eral counties for the use of school districts. The determination of the amount to be thus transferred and the manner in which the act is to be accomplished are prescribed in the statute. It is with the manner of accomplishment — the procedure — that our differences spring. By pursuing the procedure outlined in the statute, is a tax imposed or are funds merely taken from one pocket of the state and put in another?
We are dealing with funds statutorily earmarked for it is provided in C.R.S. ’53, 62-2-5, that all moneys received from fees, licenses, fines, and penalties, and from other sources “shall be deposited by the commission in the state treasury in a fund to be known as the ‘game cash fund,’ and shall be used by the commission for any expenditures authorized or contemplated by and not inconsistent with the provisions” forming the game and fish commission and vesting it with the administration of the game and fish laws. We are not concerned with funds earmarked for a certain purpose by the Constitution of this state.
Funds of the character in question are subject to the plenary power of the General Assembly. The General Assembly, under the Constitution, truly controls the purse strings of the state in all respects except where restrained by our Constitutions. “[A]s the power of the legislature to enact laws and prescribe the procedure for raising revenue to support the government, is plenary, except as limited by the inhibitions of the federal and state constitutions, no act of that department will be declared invalid unless its repugnance to the fundamental law is clear and beyond reasonable doubt.” Colorado Tax Commission v. Pitcher, 56 Colo. 343, 138 Pac. 509. See Weidenhaft v. Board of County Commissioners, 131 Colo. 432, 283 P.2d 164.
It has been said of a revenue measure that, if it is susceptible of two interpretations, one of which brings it into compliance with, and the other in violation of, the Constitution, the former interpretation shall be *316adopted. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R. v. School District, 63 Colo. 159, 165 Pac. 260.
Statutes which are subject to interpretation should not be construed in such manner as to lead to absurd results. People v. Rapini, 107 Colo. 363, 112 P.2d 551, 134 A.L.R. 545; Hessick v. Moynihan, 83 Colo. 43, 262 Pac. 907. Again, legislation which is susceptible of interpretation should not be construed in such manner that it would result in attributing to the General Assembly an improper motive. Hessick v. Moynihan, supra.
“Except as limited by constitutional provisions, the legislative body of the state has absolute control over its finances.” 81 C.J.S. States § 132, 1145. “[Ojrdinarily the proceeds of tax levies (including license fees) may be appropriated to any public purpose, and * * * by successive legislative acts the appropriation of any particular tax levy may be changed from one public purpose to another in the uncontrolled discretion of the legislature.” State v. Bates, 198 S.C. 430, 18 S.E.2d 346. “Except for funds pledged to the retirement of bonds and interest the funds are subject to the legislative will. The funds may be changed, or even abolished, and the funds therein transferred to other accounts or funds.” Reif v. Barrett, 355 Ill. 104, 188 N.E. 889. See Johnson v. McDonald, 97 Colo. 324, 49 P.2d 1017.
Application of the foregoing basic rules to the problem at hand will lead unwaveringly to the conviction that the statute does not result in the imposition of a tax but effects a change of the funds of the state from one of its pockets to another.
By Article IX, Section 2, of the Constitution of this state, the General Assembly is directed to provide for the establishment and maintenance of free public schools throughout the state. It has been held that this provision is mandatory. Duncan v. People, 89 Colo. 149, 299 Pac. 1060.
In the consideration of our problem, we must remember that Article X, Section 4, provides that “the prop*317erty, real and personal, of the state, counties, cities, towns and other municipal corporations and public libraries, shall be exempt from taxation.”
It becomes necessary to analyze 1960 Perm. Supp. C.R.S., section 123-3-1, in the light of the constitutional provisions and the rules of law and statutory construction adverted to hereinabove.
By subsection 1, the school board in each district “shall certify to the board of county commissioners a statement showing the aggregate amount, which in the judgment of said school board, it is necessary to raise from the taxable property of said district, and from the payment of school fees by the game and fish commission as hereinafter provided, to create a special fund ... It shall thereupon be the duty of the county commissioners to levy, and to certify to the game and fish commission as to those lands and improvements thereon at the time of acquisition by the game and fish commission owned by the game and fish commission within the county, at the same time as other taxes are levied, such rate within the limits allowed by law, as will produce the aggregate amount so certified by the school board. The amount of such special tax, which shall be assessed to each taxpayer of such district, shall be placed in a separate column of the tax book, which shall be headed ‘special school tax.’ ” (Emphasis supplied.)
Two sources are resorted to to create the special fund mentioned in the subsection: the first source is revenue raised from taxes on property; the second, the payment of school fees by the game and fish commission. The county commissioners in this matter shall make a levy “at the same time as other taxes are levied” and the county commissioners shall certify regarding certain things to the game and fish commission. Such special tax shall be assessed to each taxpayer of such district.
Subsection 2 provides that “it shall be the duty of the county assessor at the time that he values and assesses taxable property within the county, to value and assess *318each separate tract of land as owned by the game and fish commission, and also any improvements which may have existed on such land at the time ownership of said land was assumed by the game and fish commission . . . It shall be the duty of the county commissioners at the time taxes are levied to certify to the game and fish commission as to those lands within the county, the amount owned by the game and fish commission as ‘school fees’ which amount shall be determined at such rate of valuation and assessment as it applied in the levy of the ‘special school tax’” (Emphasis supplied.)
Again, the legislature is seeking to reach two sources of revenue, one to arise from evaluations and assessments of “taxable property” and the other to divert from the game and fish fund moneys therein, pursuant to a formula outlined in the subsection. The “special tax,” mentioned in subsections 1 and 2, takes on added significance here; differentiation between tax on the one hand and the disposition of game and fish funds on the other becomes dramatically and clarionly clear in this subsection 2.
I quote subsection 3:
“Upon receipt of a certification of school fees due from a hoard of county commissioners, the game and fish commission shall cause to have properly drawn and signed vouchers issued which the state controller shall honor by issuing warrants upon the ‘game cash fund’ established by section 62-2-5, which warrants shall be payable to the county treasurer of the certifying counties. Payment of such ‘school fees’ shall be due on the last day of February of each year. The claim established by the certificate of school fees due by the respective counties shall constitute a preferred claim on the ‘game cash fund’ and the certifying counties shall be treated as preferred creditors and paid in full. The game and fish commission shall have all the rights and obligations as to valuation and assessment and! as to the certificate of school fees due, before the county *319board of equalization, the state board of equalization and Colorado tax commission, as granted or imposed upon private taxpayers. It shall be the duty of the county treasurer upon receipt of payment of school fees from the ‘game cash fund’ to place to the credit of the proper school district the amount of ‘school fees’ owed on lands and improvements within the school district owned by the game and fish commission, and the amount placed to the credit of each school district from such fees shall be reported to the secretary of the district on or before the last day of March of each year.” (Emphasis supplied.)
That a transfer of funds from one department of government to another is the purpose of the statute appears from the language of this subsection. A formula for determining the amount to be transferred threads through the whole section. In subsection 3, assurance of the proper amount is provided for by permitting resort to boards of equalization.
In view of what I have said, how can it be asserted that, beyond a reasonable doubt, public property is being taxed in pursuing the terms of the statute?
To construe the statute in question as one of taxing the game and fish department would be in violation of the rule that a construction consonant with the Constitution should be given rather than one violative of it when the statute under consideration lends itself to two constructions.
To construe the section in question as the imposition of a tax would lead to absurd results: it would be a useless thing for the state to tax its own property, J. W. Perry Co. v. City of Norfolk, 220 U.S. 472, 31 S.Ct. 435, 55 L.Ed. 548; it would effect “taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another” through the expensive and devious device of taxation, City of Portland v. Multnomah County, 135 Ore. 469, 296 Pac. 48, all contrary to the Constitution, when with ease the legislature could, through the exercise of its plenary *320power, accomplish the same result by a mere transfer of funds from one department to another.
I submit that, under the very terms of the statute itself, a transfer of funds was the purpose of the statute. Conversely, a construction to the effect that an exaction was imposed upon the game and fish department is strained, unreal, and, therefore, unwarranted.
Mr. Justice McWilliams and Mr. Justice Schauer join in this dissent.