Court Opinion

ID: 9551707
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:57:48.291884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:24:26.042497
License: Public Domain

Hamilton, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part) —I concur with the majority view that (a) the fourteenth amendment to the state constitution requires that tax ratios employed by the Snohomish County Assessor be uniform *492throughout the county; (b) the Tax Commission can, -under prevailing statutes, direct compliance with the Fourteenth Amendment; and (c) the Tax Commission cannot order or direct a tax ratio less than the ratio authorized by the seventeenth amendment to the state constitution or by RCW 84-.40.030.
I disagree, however, with the final disposition of the majority. Rather than void the entire order, I would prohibit enforcement only of so much of paragraph 1 of the order as purports to direct a tax ratio less than constitutionally and statutorily authorized. This, then, would permit operation of paragraph 2 of the order, as extended by stipulation, to the end that the appropriate officials of Snohomish County could be timely required to present to the Tax Commission a plan, consistent with constitutional limitations, whereby any disparity in the level of assessments would be forthwith eliminated.
The question of whether the tax ratios employed in Snohomish County or elsewhere are valid or invalid is not before us and we should not decide the issue sua sponte and/or by implication.
Finley, C. J., concurs with Hamilton, J.