Court Opinion

ID: 9534131
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:37:04.170035+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:40.690970
License: Public Domain

M. J. Kelly, P. J.
(concurring). I concur in the result reached by the majority. As to issue no III, however, it is my belief that § 92 of SBTA, MCLA 208.92; MSA 7.558(92), is unconstitutional and will be so declared on procedural and substantive due process grounds if not on the grounds urged by plaintiff. Of course if the commissioner never exercises the authority conveyed by that section an actual controversy would never arise. It may be gratuitous to do so but for my part I would indicate so great an aversion to the tax collection power granted the commissioner under § 92 that I would summarily declare it unconstitutional. To offer up the power to a tax collecting czar to revoke a doctor’s, lawyer’s, plumber’s or foodhan-dler’s licensing privileges in order to bludgeon the payment of a tax assessment, is an intolerable bureaucratic invasion of the people’s rights, privileges and expectations. (Plaintiffs counsel estimated that there were 400 such licenses and permits listed in the indices in this state and although we have not audited that count it is unlikely he was far from wrong.)
This prediction, for that is all it is, would have no effect on the remainder of the act because of MCLA 8.5; MSA 2.216, the severability clause.