Court Opinion

ID: 9539542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:05:43.370667+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:56.412846
License: Public Domain

PETERSON, J.,
dissenting.
A state legislature’s most basic power is the power to enact laws. A corollary to that power, but equally important, is the power to repeal laws that it has enacted. At the heart of the power to govern is a third power, the power to levy taxes. As a general rule, one legislature cannot bind a later legislature.
The majority states that, because the tax exemption was enacted “as part and parcel of the Public Employes’ Retirement Act of 1953,” it follows that “former ORS 237.201 is aterm of the larger PERS contract.” 314 Or at 25.1 disagree for these reasons:
1. In order to find that the legislature intended to permanently bargain away its power to tax, that intention must be unmistakably clear. Inclusion of a tax exemption with other statutes that create a contract is not sufficient to establish the requisite legislative intent to create a permanent tax exemption.
2. The legislature, in 1945,1953, and 1969, did not intend to contract with PERS employees to create a permanent tax exemption.
3. Legislative action in subsequent sessions, particularly in 1971, shows that the legislature did not believe that the power to tax had been contracted away.
1. In order to find that the legislature intended to permanently bargain away its power to tax, that intention must be unmistakably clear. Inclusion of a tax exemption with other statutes that create a contract is not sufficient to establish the requisite legislative intent to create a permanent tax exemption.
Both this court and the Supreme Court of the United States have held that a state cannot contract away its eminent domain power or its police power. See West River Bridge Co. v. Dix, 47 US (6 How) 507, 12 L Ed 535 (1848) (a state may not contract away its eminent domain); Boyd v. Alabama, 94 US (4 Otto) 645, 650, 24 L Ed 302 (1876) (a state cannot *59contract away its police power); Eckles v. State of Oregon, 306 Or 380, 397-98, 760 P2d 846 (1988) (the state cannot contract away its eminent domain power or its police power), appeal dismissed 490 US 1032 (1989). The Supreme Court of the United States has not stated a similar prohibition against a state’s permanently impairing its power to tax. Unquestionably, the early decisions of the Court upheld the power of states to contract away the power to tax. However, the Court has applied a strict rule of construction against finding an irrepealable tax exemption. Wisconsin & Michigan Ry. Co. v. Powers, 191 US 379, 24 S Ct 107, 48 L Ed 229 (1903); Covington v. Kentucky, 173 US 231, 19 S Ct 83, 43 L Ed 679 (1899). No decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the last 100 years has upheld an irrepealable tax exemption.
Precedents of this court and the Supreme Court of the United States suggest this strict rule of construction concerning irrevocable tax exemptions: When a tax exemption is included with other legislation that does create a contract, the intention to create an irrevocable tax exemption must be so clearly and unambiguously shown that there can be no doubt about the legislature’s intention.
In Eckles v. State of Oregon, supra, 306 Or at 390, this court concluded that Article I, section 21, of the Oregon Constitution, applied to contracts made by the state as well as to contracts between private parties. In reaching that conclusion, the court noted that Article I, section 21, had its origins in the federal Contract Clause, Article I, section 10, clause 1, of the United States Constitution, and that the federal Contract Clause had been interpreted to encompass state contracts prior to the adoption of the Oregon Constitution in 1859. Id. at 389-90. The significance of that conclusion is that the Oregon Contract Clause may prevent a later legislature from amending or repealing earlier legislation if that legislation is in the nature of a contract. See Fletcher v. Peck, 10 US (6 Cranch) 87, 135, 3 L Ed 162 (1810) (“When, then, a law is in its nature a contract, a repeal of the law cannot divest those rights”).
Because a determination that the legislature intended to contract away the power of future legislatures and of the people to legislate concerning a particular issue *60results in a diminution of sovereign power, this court is unwilling to find an intent to create a contract absent an unambiguous expression of intent to do so from the legislature. Eckles v. State of Oregon, supra, 306 Or at 397. In Eckles, the plaintiffs claimed that a 1982 law authorizing the transfer of money from the Industrial Accident Fund (IAF) to the General Fund violated Article I, section 21, of the Oregon Constitution, because the law creating the IAF contractually obligated the state not to assert any proprietary interest in the IAF. In determining whether the legislative act creating the IAF was a contract, the court stated this rule of construction:
“[A] state contract will not be inferred from legislation that does not unambiguously express an intention to create a . contract. [Citing cases.] Although the rule is concerned with the existence of a contractual agreement, rather than with the extent of the obligation created by an agreement, the effect of the rule is to eliminate the state’s contractual obligation whenever there is doubt concerning the agreement.” Id. at 397 (emphasis added).
Accord Campbell v. Aldrich, 159 Or 208, 213-14, 79 P2d 257 (“the intention of the legislature thus to create contractual obligations, resulting in extinguishment to a certain extent of governmental powers, must clearly and unmistakably appear” (emphasis added)), appeal dismissed 305 US 559 (1938); United States Trust Co. v. New Jersey, 431 US 1, 17 n 14, 97 S Ct 1505, 52 L Ed 2d 92 (1977); Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 36 US (11 Pet) 420, 544, 9 L Ed 773 (1837).
Eckles stated the general rule — a state contract will not be inferred from legislation that does not unambiguously express an intention to create a contract — and then listed other special rules concerning state contracts inferred from legislation. Eckles v. State of Oregon, supra, 306 Or at 397-99. Those special rules include the rules that the state’s power of eminent domain is not limited by the Contract Clause and that the state may not contract away its ‘ ‘police power. ” Id. at 397-98. Eckles also suggested that there may be other special rules within the language and history of Article I, section 21. Id. at 399. Another such special rule is that, because the power of a government to tax is at the core of governmental power, legislative intent to relinquish the power to tax must *61be so clearly and unambiguously expressed as to leave no room for doubt.1
As early as 1893, this court, in dictum, stated that the better rule may be that “the legislature has no right to bargain away the taxing power of the state so as to place it beyond the control of succeeding legislatures.” Hogg v. McKay, 23 Or 339, 341, 31 P 779 (1893) (emphasis added). Five years later, in Ladd v. City of Portland, 32 Or 271, 275, 51 P 654(1898), which concerned the power of a city to tax for street improvements, the court stated that the power to tax ‘ ‘is ‘never presumed to be relinquished unless the intention to relinquish is declared in clear and unequivocal terms.’ ” (quoting from Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Co. v. Maryland, 51 US (10 How) 376, 393, 13 L Ed 461 (1850)). The Supreme Court of the United States has long applied a rule of strict construction against irrepealable tax exemptions; a legislature’s intent to contract away its taxing power must be free from all doubt. In Providence Bank v. Billings, 29 US (4 Pet) 514, 561, 7 L Ed 939 (1830), Chief Justice Marshall stated:
“That the taxing power is of vital importance; that it is essential to the existence of government; are truths which it cannot be necessary to re-affirm. They are acknowledged and asserted by all. It would seem, that the relinquishment of such a power is never to be presumed. We will not say, that a state may not relinquish it; that a consideration sufficiently valuable to induce a partial release of it, may not exist: but as the whole community is interested in retaining it undiminished; that community has a right to insist, that its abandonment ought not to be presumed, in a case in which the deliberate purpose of the state to abandon it does not appear.”
In the Court’s December 1850 term, it reiterated that “the taxing power of a State is never presumed to be relinquished unless the intention to relinquish is declared in clear and unambiguous terms.” Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Co. v. Maryland, supra, 51 US (10 How) at 393, quoted with approval in Ladd v. City of Portland, supra, *6232 Or at 275; see also Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific Railroad Co. v. Dennis, 116 US 665, 668, 6 S Ct 625, 29 L Ed 770 (1886) (noting that the quoted “rule has been strictly upheld and constantly reaffirmed in every variety of expression”).
Concerning the type of showing that must be made to establish an irrepealable tax exemption, the Supreme Court of the United States in Covington v. Kentucky, supra, 173 US at 239, a case involving the federal Contract Clause, stated:
“Before a statute — particularly one relating to taxation — should be held to be irrepealable, or not subject to amendment, an intent not to repeal or amend must be so directly and unmistakably expressed as to leave no room for doubt; otherwise, the intent is not plainly expressed. It is not so expressed when the existence of the intent arises only from inference or conjecture.”
Given the similarity of the Oregon and federal Contract Clauses, Covington is persuasive authority for the proposition that only the most explicit language will suffice to create an irrevocable statutory tax exemption.2 And Eckles v. State of Oregon, supra, 306 Or at 390-91, 397, which enunciates essentially the same standard, is binding authority.
I do not dispute that the state has the power to contract away its power to tax. The question is what is required for the state to create a permanent contractual tax exemption. The answer to that question is that the legislation must evidence more than a clear and unambiguous general intent to create a contract; a specific intent to create a permanent tax exemption as a term of the contract must be shown. The intent must be so clearly and unambiguously expressed as to leave no room for doubt that the legislature intended to contract away the taxing power, one of the core legislative powers reserved to the people and future legislatures by Article IV, section 1, of the Oregon Constitution. *63Consistent with Eckles, this strict rule against finding irre-pealable tax exemptions is a special rule limiting the application of the Contract Clause in a manner consonant with the language and history of Article I, section 21.
2. The legislature, in 1945, 1953, and 1969, did not intend to contract with PERS employees to create a permanent tax exemption.
In deciding whether Oregon Laws 1991, chapter 823, impairs the obligation of a contract, the court first must determine whether ORS 237.201, prior to the 1991 amendment, was a term of a contract between the state and PERS employees. The question is whether the legislature, in 1945, 1953, or 1969, intended to bind itself and future legislatures and the voters, by a statutory contract, to permanently exempt retirement income of all current and former state and local public employees from state income tax, effectively relinquishing its ability to exercise this core legislative authority.
In 1945, the legislature enacted the Public Employes’ Retirement Act (1945 Act), Or Laws 1945, ch 401, the precursor to the present PERS laws. Section 23 of the 1945 Act provided:
“The right of a person to a pension, an annuity, or a retirement allowance, to the return of contribution, the pension, annuity, or retirement allowance itself, any optional benefit or death benefit, or any other right accrued or accruing to any person under the provisions of this act, and the money in the various funds created by the act, shall be exempt from all state, county, and municipal taxes and shall not be subject to execution, garnishment, attachment, or any other process or the operation of any bankruptcy or insolvency law, and shall be unassignable.” Or Laws 1945, ch 401, §23.
Section 23 describes four attributes of the retirement benefits provided by the 1945 Act: (1) they “shall be exempt from all state, county, and municipal taxes”; (2) they “shall not be subject to execution, garnishment, attachment, or any other process”; (3) they “shall not be subject to * * * the operation of any bankruptcy or insolvency law”; and (4) they “shall be unassignable.”
*64Although the use of the mandatory “shall” is indicative of the strength of the legislature’s intent regarding those four attributes, the language of section 23, the exemption provision, does not clearly and unambiguously express an intention not to allow repeal or amendment. Certainly, it is plausible to infer that the tax exemption is like other financial benefits that petitioners derive from their state employment contracts. But the conclusion that the tax exemption is contractual must rest upon more than that. The legislature’s intention must be so clear and unambiguous as to leave no room for doubt. The placement of the exemption in section 23 among other provisions that have little or nothing to do with monetary benefits that might be the subject of a contract suggests that the exemption was not intended to be contractual.3
There is no legislative history available concerning the 1945 legislature’s intention. At the time, the prevailing view of government employee pensions was that pensions were gratuities given through the beneficence of the sovereign and could be modified or ehminated at the will of the sovereign. See Crawford v. Teachers’ Ret. Fund Ass’n, 164 Or 77, 87, 88, 99 P2d 729 (1940) (“There is a sound distinction between a ‘pension’ and an ‘annuity’ the former “is always subject to legislative control”); see also Annot, 52 ALR2d 437 (1957) (notingthat, in 1957, the prevailingview was that both contributory and noncontributory public pensions were subject to legislative modification or elimination, but also noting that some states were beginning to recognize vested pension rights in contributory plans upon completion of the plan’s *65requirements). Even though pension benefits now are considered to be contractual, it is certainly not clear or unambiguous from the language or context of the 1945 Act that the legislature intended to make the tax exemption a term of state employees’ contracts.
In 1953, the legislature repealed the 1945 Act, Or Laws 1953, ch 180, §§ 2 and 18, and subsequently enacted the Public Employes’ Retirement Act of 1953 (1953 Act). Or Laws 1953, ch 200. In creating the present PERS scheme, the legislature included in the 1953 Act a provision with language identical to section 23 of the 1945 Act. Or Laws 1953, ch 200, § 22. Section 22 of the 1953 Act retained the same four attributes for benefits provided in the 1945 Act. The next inquiry is whether the 1953 legislature, in creating the present PERS scheme, intended to contract away the state’s power to repeal the tax exemption contained in section 22 of the 1953 Act.
Because the operative language of the exemption provision in the 1953 Act is identical to the language of the 1945 Act — which did not express a clear and unambiguous intention to create a contract for a tax exemption — the existence of such an intent must be found elsewhere, if at all. The majority relies on an opinion of the Attorney General issued prior to the repeal of the 1945 Act. The majority notes that the 1953 legislature enacted ORS 237.950 to 237.980, which preserved the accrued benefits of state employees, in the process of liquidating the pre-1953 retirement system. It concludes that the legislature believed that the pre-1953 system contained enforceable contract rights and thus protected those rights, including the right to a tax exemption. From that premise, the majority decides that the 1953 legislature intended the tax exemption to continue as a contract right when it re-enacted that system without substantial modification. 314 Or at 18-20.
There is no question but that the policy of the state in 1953, as it was in 1945, was that the retirement benefits of state employees should be exempt from state and local taxation. But that is largely irrelevant to the issue before us. The question is whether the 1953 legislature without doubt intended to contract away the power of future legislatures to declare a different taxation policy that might be more appropriate in different circumstances. Even assuming that the *661953 legislature was aware of the Attorney General’s opinion and on that basis intended generally that PERS benefits would be contractual rather than gratuitous, there is no basis for concluding that the legislature clearly and unambiguously intended to include the income tax exemption for those benefits as part of that contract, not to be modified by any subsequent legislature. The Attorney General’s opinion makes no reference to the tax-exempt status of the pre-1953 benefits. The legislative preservation of the tax exempt status of pre-1953 benefits and provision for a continued tax exemption for PERS benefits is understandable given the then-prevailing policy that state employees’ retirement benefits should be free from state and local taxation. The “shall be exempt” language of section 22 of the 1953 Act, ORS 237.201, is nothing more than a shorthand way of saying “are exempt while this statute remains in effect.”
There is much doubt concerning the legislature’s intent to create, in 1945 or 1953, a permanent tax exemption. There is no doubt as to the legislature’s intent in 1969 when it further amended ORS 237.201. Or Laws 1969, ch 640, § 13. After the 1969 amendment, the statute provided:
“The right of a person to a pension, an annuity or a retirement allowance, or to the return of contribution, the pension, annuity or retirement allowance itself, any optional benefit or death benefit, or any other right accrued or accruing to any person under the provisions of ORS 237.001 to 237.315, and the money in the various funds created by ORS 237.271 and 237.281, shall be exempt from all state, county and municipal taxes heretofore or hereafter imposed, shall not be subject to execution, garnishment, attachment or any other process or the operation of any bankruptcy or insolvency law heretofore or hereafter existing or enacted, and shall be unassignable.” ORS 237.201 (1969) (added language emphasized).
Although the additional language might be read as promising a permanent tax exemption, the events and legislative history of the 1969 amendment contradict such a conclusion and strongly support the conclusion that the legislature was merely trying to make it clear that the exemption was not to be amended sub silentio.
The 1969 legislative history shows that the language added to ORS 237.201 was intended to prevent courts from *67interpreting tax statutes enacted between 1953 and 1969 and thereafter as impliedly repealing the earlier enacted PERS tax exemption and thereby subjecting otherwise exempt benefits to their provisions. Rather than evidencing an intent to contract away the state’s taxing power, the 1969 amendment is more appropriately interpreted as clarifying the scope of the statutory income tax exemption. There is nothing in the legislative history to suggest that the legislature intended to grant a virtually permanent tax exemption to all PERS employees and retirees.
The legislative history shows that the 1969 amendment at issue stemmed from a recent circuit court decision holding that PERS retirement benefits were subject to state inheritance tax because the state inheritance tax law had been enacted subsequent in time to the retirement law. Max Manchester, the executive secretary of the Public Employees’ Retirement Board, sent legislative counsel a list of proposed changes. Number 5 on the list states:
“ORS 237.201 says retirement benefits not subject to state tax. Circuit court has said retirement benefits subject to state inheritance tax because inheritance tax is later than retirement law. Make clear that retirement benefits exempt from all state and local taxes, not dependent upon when statutes enacted.”
In order to make clear that retirement benefits would be exempt from all state and local taxes, even though the tax law was enacted later, the legislature amended ORS 237.201.
Far from suggesting that the 1969 amendment was intended to create a contractual obligation that would bar any future imposition of income tax, the 1969 amendments were intended only to clarify that the ORS 237.201 exemption was not limited to taxes that existed at the time it was enacted. If anything, the 1969 legislation confirms continuing legislative power to control the taxability of PERS retirement benefits, not a legislative decision irrevocably to relinquish such power.
3. Legislative action in subsequent sessions, particularly in 1971, shows that the legislature did not believe that the power to tax had been contracted away.
*68Two years after the 1969 amendment, the legislature amended ORS 237.201 to make PERS retirement benefits subject to the inheritance tax. Or Laws 1971, ch 732, § 3'. Eight years after that, the 1979 legislature amended ORS 237.201 to make PERS retirement benefits subject to “executions or other process arising out of a support obligation or an order entered pursuant to ORS 23.777 to 23.783.” Or Laws 1979, ch 85, § 2. And, in 1985, the legislature amended ORS 237.201 to make PERS benefits subject to additional support obligations. Or Laws 1985, ch 671, § 9. Concededly, actions of the legislature in 1971,1979, or 1985 do not determine what was the 1969 legislature’s intent. Nonetheless, these changes — particularly the 1971 changes — are relevant, for they show that subsequent legislatures viewed ORS 237.201 as described above — subject to amendment to enlarge or restrict the tax liability or other attributes of PERS benefits as the legislature decided was appropriate.
Conclusion
In sum, after examining the 1945, 1953, and 1969 legislation concerning the tax exemption for PERS benefits, I conclude that none of that legislation evidences a clear and unambiguous intent to contract away the sovereign power of taxation of future legislatures and the voters. I do not deny that the language added in 1969 evidences a strong legislative intent regarding the exemption at that time. However, that is not the issue. Rather, the issue is whether the legislature ever has clearly and unambiguously expressed an intention to create a permanent tax exemption. With but one obvious substitution, the conclusion of the Supreme Court of the United States in Covington v. Kentucky, supra, — interpreting a statute that provided that certain property “shall be and remain, forever exempt from state, county, and city tax,” 173 US at 233 — is equally apropos here:
“The utmost that can be said is that it may be inferred from the terms in which the exemption was declared, that the legislature had no purpose at the time the act of [1945,1953, or 1969] was passed to withdraw the exemption from taxation; not that the power reserved would never be exerted, so far as taxation was concerned, if in the judgment of the legislature the public interests required that to be done.” Id. at 239.
*69I am not persuaded by the majority’s argument that, because PERS creates contractual rights and the tax exemption is within the PERS statutes, the exemption necessarily is a term of the state’s contracts with its employees. Granted, there is some resonance to that argument, given that the tax exemption has economic value to state employees, like other provisions setting the amount and duration of PERS benefits. Nonetheless, given the heightened standard for finding a contractual tax exemption, the mere placement of the tax exemption in a law that creates other contractual rights is not sufficient evidence of the necessary intent. Taken to its logical conclusion, the majority’s approach would require the legislature to disavow affirmatively any intent to create a contractual right to a tax exemption when it included the exemption within the PERS law. Today, the PERS law, ORS 237.001 to 237.315, fills more than 58 pages in the Oregon Revised Statutes. It has been amended at every regular legislative session since 1945. Given the majority opinion, what must future legislatures do to make it clear that any (or some) changes are not intended to be contractual?
The 19th century decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States involving tax exemptions granted in corporate charters are not to the contrary. In the early part of the 19th century, the Court held that the issuance of a charter by a state legislature created a contract between the state and the entity availing itself of the charter. Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 US (4 Wheat) 518, 4 L Ed 629 (1819). The required clear and unambiguous intention was easily shown. In those days, a charter was a contract with the sovereign. The tax exemption was indisputably a part of the contract. In many cases it was the pith and core of the contract. Therefore, withdrawing the tax exemption impaired the contract. See The Piqua Branch of the State Bank of Ohio v. Knoop, 57 US (16 How) 369, 14 L Ed 977 (1853) (tax exemption granted in legislation providing for corporate charter for banks not repealable); Gordon v. The Appeal Tax Court, 44 US (3 How) 133, 11 L Ed 529 (1845) (same).
The legislation here is not sufficiently like a corporate charter to justify the same rule of construction. Perhaps the most significant distinction between charters and the *70PERS scheme is the formality of the contract at issue. A charter was an integrated contract between the state and the entities choosing to avail themselves of the benefits and to assume the obligations of the charter legislation. The formal assent required for incorporation under a charter established the four corners of the contract between the state and the corporation.
The contractual nature of the accrual of public retirement benefits was anything but clear when the legislature enacted the 1945 Act. That our precedents indicate that public pensions are now considered to be contractual does not eliminate the lack of clarity in the law concerning public pensions at the time of the 1945 and 1953 legislation. Given that lack of clarity and the lack of formality of the employment contract, there is no justification for treating either the 1945 or 1953 legislature’s presumed general intent to contract with employees regarding the accrual of PERS benefits also as an intent to contract with employees for a permanent tax exemption merely because the exemption was enacted as part of the legislation creating the retirement system.
Finally, although I have found no Oregon precedent directly on point factually, a 1979 decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio, Herrick v. Lindley, 59 Ohio St 2d 22, 391 NE2d 729 (1979), is apposite. Ohio had adopted a PERS system similar to Oregon’s and had also adopted, as part of the same scheme, a provision virtually identical to the pre-1991 version of ORS 237.201 that exempted PERS benefits from Ohio state income tax. The Ohio legislature withdrew the income tax exemption for PERS benefits. The Ohio Supreme Court rejected the retired employees’ claim that the statute created “a vested right in [the tax] exemption” that could not later be changed. 391 NE2d at 731. The court held that, although the right to PERS benefits vested, the right to a tax exemption did not.
“When a legislative body grants a vested right to exemption from taxation, it partially relinquishes its ability to deal with changing fiscal conditions in the future. The power to tax being a fundamental governmental power, its impairment should not be based upon a debatable construction of statutory language. To the contrary, every reasonable doubt should be resolved against such an impairment.
*71“Applying this standard to R.C. 145.561 and 3307.711, we hold that it was not the intent of the General Assembly to grant appellees a vested right to receive their pensions exempt from state taxation. It is reasonable to assume that if such had been the desire of the legislative body, it could have provided for the vesting of the tax exemptions by appropriate language in these sections.” Id. at 733 (citations omitted).
If the Oregon legislature had intended to create a contractual right to a tax exemption, it would have expressed its intent clearly and unambiguously so as to leave no room for doubt. The wording might well be similar to that used by the 1929 legislature in enacting ORS 656.634.4
In sum, the dispositive question is whether the 1945, 1953, or 1969 legislature intended to prevent future legislatures and/or the voters from subjecting PERS benefits to taxation. As stated, the express language of the statute is crystal clear, insofar as the income tax exemption itself is concerned. But it is anything but clear that the legislature intended to bind the hands of future legislatures in such a substantial way. A conclusion that the state, by contract, has promised a timeless tax exemption for any class of citizens or property erodes in a serious way the principle that generally “[a] legislature cannot limit the power of amendment of a subsequent legislature, either as to the extent or manner of its exercise.” 1A Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction 107, § 22.07 (4th ed 1972). Further, such a conclusion would thwart, in part, the reserved right of the people to initiate *72legislation under Article IV, section 1(2), of the Oregon Constitution.
I would hold that the legislature did not clearly and unambiguously express an intention to contract away its power to subject PERS benefits to state income taxes. Because there was no contract for the tax exemption, the 1991 legislature’s repeal of the tax exemption did not breach a state contract or impair an obligation of contract in violation of either the Oregon or federal Contract Clause. Further, because retired state employees had no contractual right to the tax exemption, the repeal of that exemption could not result in a taking that would require just compensation under either the state or federal constitution.
I therefore dissent.

 Because of the essential nature of the power of taxation, the general rule for construing tax exemptions is that they are construed strictly in favor of the state’s power to tax and against the taxpayer’s right to be free from tax. Santiam Fish & Game Ass’n v. Tax Com., 229 Or 506, 516, 368 P2d 401 (1962).

 More recently, the Supreme Court restated the proposition in this way: “ ‘The power of taxation is never to be regarded as surrendered or bargained away if there is room for rational doubt as to the purpose.’ ” Atlantic Coast Line v. Phillips, 332 US 168, 172, 67 S Ct 1584, 91 L Ed 2d 1977 (1947) (quoting Wright v. Georgia Railroad & Banking Co., 216 US 420, 438, 30 S Ct 242, 54 L Ed 2d 544 (1910)).

 Exemptions from taxation and execution or other process are not unusual. The Oregon Revised Statutes are sprinkled with such exemptions. See, e.g., ORS 23.170 (pensions exempt from execution and other process); ORS 316.758 and 316.765 (income tax exemption for the severely disabled); ORS 656.234 (workers’ compensation benefits generally exempt from execution or other process); ORS 657.855 (unemployment compensation exempt from execution); ORS 748.207 (benefits payable by fraternal benefit societies exempt from attachment, garnishment, or other process). Although such exemptions, like the exemption for PERS benefits, have economic value to the beneficiaries, that fact does not make them contractual. Given the similarities between those many noncontractual exemptions noted above and the exemptions for PERS benefits, the mere fact that the PERS exemptions are contained in legislation that created other contractual rights is not sufficient to establish a clear and unambiguous intent to contract with respect to the tax exemption and other exemptions.

 The legislature knows how to enact such statutes. See Or Laws 1929, ch 172 (at issue in Eckles v. States of Oregon, 306 Or 380, 392-93, 760 P2d 846 (1988), appeal dismissed 490 US 1032 (1989)). In creating a workers’ compensation trust fund intended to be beyond legislative reach, the act provided:
“The state of Oregon hereby does declare that the industrial accident fund created by the workmen’s compensation act of Oregon, being chapter 112, General Laws of Oregon, 1913, as amended by various sessions of the legislature thereafter, be and the same is a trust fund for the uses and purposes declared in said act as so amended, and no other, and that the contributions to the said fund heretofore made by the state of Oregon have become an integral part of said fund and have either been expended or allocated to the catastrophe fund, rehabilitation fund or segregated accident fund, and the state of Oregon hereby does declare that it has no proprietary interest in said fund or in the contributions thereto heretofore made by said state, and hereby does disclaim any right to reclaim said contributions or any part thereof for its own use, and hereby does waive any such right of reclamation, if any it ever had, in or to any of said fund. ”