Court Opinion

ID: 9673926
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:20:33.173886+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:24.861910
License: Public Domain

ROBERTSON, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The statute at issue here — Section 144.-030.2(11), RSMo 1986 — is ambiguous. The majority opinion amply displays this ambiguity and leads us on a tour of tax exemption statutes using the word “directly” in unrelated contexts. The point the majority attempts to make is that the General Assembly knows the word “directly” and would have .used “directly” to modify “used” in the statute if it meant to do so.
There are, of course, other ways to say “directly”; one of those ways is to say, as the General Assembly does in Section 144.-030.2(11), that the exemption applies only if the railroad rolling stock is used “in transporting persons or property in interstate commerce.” The exemption is dependent upon the use to which the rolling stock is put. I read the statute to limit the exemption to railroad rolling stock that carries persons or property in commerce between the states. Said another way, the exemption applies only to railroad rolling stock carrying things that are themselves in commerce between the states.
*277As the majority opinion correctly says of the Administrative Hearing Commission’s decision, the interpretation I favor is a narrow one. It is, however, consistent with the rules of construction this Court has adopted for use in considering tax exemption statutes. The broad interpretation adopted by the majority is not.
This Court has consistently stated that ambiguities in tax exemption statutes are strictly construed against the taxpayer claiming the exemption. Missouri Public Service Co. v. Director of Revenue, 733 S.W.2d 448, 449 (Mo. banc 1987); Farm & Home Savings Ass’n. v. Spradling, 538 S.W.2d 313, 317 (Mo.1976). As I read this canon of construction, narrow interpretations of exemption statutes are required. And unlike most canons of construction, this one has no mirror-image canon to which opposing views may hearken. The majority cites the canon, then ignores it.
While there is little empirical evidence to support the conclusion, this Court also presumes that the legislature is aware of our decisions. Kilbane v. Director of Revenue, 544 S.W.2d 9, 11 (Mo. banc 1976). Thus, it can be argued — and it seems to me with greater force than the majority can muster — that the legislature intended a narrow construction of the exemption statute precisely because this Court has heretofore consistently construed exemption statutes narrowly.
Applying these canons of construction, I agree with the conclusion of the Administrative Hearing Commission that the exemption is available only if the railroad rolling stock is used directly for the transportation of people and freight, themselves in interstate commerce. I, therefore, dissent.