Court Opinion

ID: 9853107
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:42:44.444604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:40.971186
License: Public Domain

Judge Greene
concurring:
Section 105-241.1(g) of the North Carolina General Statutes provides that the Secretary of Revenue “may” give the taxpayer notice of a proposed jeopardy assessment and pursuant to that notice the taxpayer may request a hearing. In this case, the notice was given and the taxpayers did not request a hearing. I therefore agree with the majority that in this case, because the taxpayers had a right to a hearing and did not request one, summary judgment was properly entered for the defendants.
I do note, however, that the taxpayers’ due process rights would have been violated had the Secretary not given the taxpayers notice and an opportunity to be heard on the assessment. In those situations where the Secretary proceeds without notice (which the statute suggests she may), the taxpayer is permitted to question the assessment only upon payment of the tax, N.C.G.S. § 105-267 (1995), and there is no evidence that the taxpayers had the ability to pay the large assessment in question. In this event, there would be no practical method to question the tax and this would be violative of the taxpayers’ due process rights. See General Textile Printing & Process. v. Rocky Mount, 908 F. Supp. 1295, 1304 (E.D.N.C. 1995) (statute imposing prerequisite on party that he cannot meet “ ‘shock[s] the conscience’ [and] offend[s] ‘ásense of justice’ ”).