Court Opinion

ID: 9645579
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:29:05.448414+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:29.537233
License: Public Domain

NIX, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the majority. I disagree, however, with the majority’s “preemption of the field” analysis and therefore cannot embrace the reasoning of the majority opinion.
I do not agree that the State’s preemption of a field of activity for regulatory purposes in and of itself deprives a municipality of the power to levy taxes on businesses operating within that field. In City of Pittsburgh v. Allegheny Valley Bank of Pittsburgh, 488 Pa. 544, 412 A.2d 1366 (1980), a majority of this Court as then constituted reasoned that the City of Pittsburgh’s Business Privilege Tax as applied to banks impermissibly impinged upon an area preempted by the Commonwealth. In my dissenting opinion in that case, I drew a distinction between regulation of a field and a municipality’s power to tax business within that field:
Today’s opinion of the Court correctly states that the state legislature intended to “exclusively occupy the state banking field.” At 1369, emphasis added. This observation, however, does not compel the conclusion that the legislature also intended to deprive municipalities of their statutory power to levy taxes applicable to all businesses within the municipality. The Pittsburgh Business Privilege Tax does not intrude upon the state’s exclusive domain of bank regulation, it merely requires banks located within the City of Pittsburgh to pay the same that every other business in Pittsburgh pays.
Id., 488 Pa. at 556-557, 412 A.2d at 1372 (Nix, J., joined by Eagen, C.J.) (footnotes omitted, emphasis in original).
Rather than employ the City of Pittsburgh majority’s preemption analysis, I urged an approach which looks to the legislative grant of local taxing power:
*226Since the language of the Local Tax Enabling Act expressly gives the City of Pittsburgh the “power to levy, assess and collect taxes upon any and all subjects of taxation ... which the Commonwealth has power to tax but which it does not tax or license,” an option which has been exercised by the City of Pittsburgh by ordinance, the effect of today’s decision is to infer from bank regulatory enactments an exemption from the city’s business privilege tax. This result plainly contravenes the rule that a statutory provision purporting to exempt persons and property from taxation must be strictly construed. 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1928(b)(5); Bd. of Revision of Taxes of Philadelphia v. United Fund of Philadelphia Area, 11 Pa. Cmwlth. 201, 314 A.2d 530 (1973).
Id., 488 Pa. at 561, 412 A.2d at 1375 (footnote omitted).
In the instant case, unlike City of Pittsburgh, supra, such an analysis leads to the conclusion that the City of Harrisburg’s Business Privilege Tax may not be imposed upon a malt and brewed alcoholic beverage distributor. Section 3 of the Local Tax Enabling Act, Act of December 31, 1965, P.L. 1257, § 3, 53 P.S. § 6903, provides:
If, subsequent to the passage of any ordinance or resolution under the authority of this act, the General Assembly shall impose a tax or license fee on any privilege, transactions, subject or occupation, or on personal property or on sales of admission to places of amusement or on sales or other transfer of title or possession of property taxed by any such political subdivision hereunder, the act of Assembly imposing the State tax or license fee thereon shall automatically vacate the ordinance or resolution passed under the authority of this act as to all taxes accruing subsequent to the end of the current fiscal year of such political subdivision. It is the intention of this section to confer upon such political subdivision the power to levy, assess and collect taxes upon any and all subjects of taxation, except as above restricted and limited, which the Commonwealth has power to tax but which it does not tax or license, subject only to *227the foregoing provision that any tax or license shall automatically terminate at the end of the current fiscal year of the political subdivision. (Emphasis added.)
The clear language of section 3, when applied to the subject of the manufacture, sale and distribution of malt and brewed beverages, compels the conclusion that the Local Tax Enabling Act does not authorize municipal taxation of that activity. This subject is one that the Commonwealth has exercised its power to tax, license and collect licensing fees. See Act of April 12, 1951, P.L. 90, art. IV, § 431 et seq., as amended, 47 P.S. § 4-431 et seq.; Act of May 5, 1933, P.L. 284, § 1 et seq., as amended, 47 P.S. § 103 et seq. Thus, by the terms of the Local Tax Enabling Act, a municipality is not authorized to levy a business privilege tax on a malt and brewed beverage dealer.