Court Opinion

ID: 9568265
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:01:59.573076+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:31.730142
License: Public Domain

Gunter, Justice,
dissenting.
I am in disagreement with the majority opinion and the judgment rendered in this case. In the recently decided case of First Federal Savings &c. Assn. v. Abbott, 231 Ga. 864 (204 SE2d 594), this court held as follows: "We hold that the tax imposed by Code Ann. § 92-164 is a one-time tax on intangible property, namely, long-term promissory notes secured by real estate, and for Georgia to impose such a tax the taxable situs of the note or notes *350must be in Georgia.” The majority does not today repudiate or overrule Abbott; but it attempts to distinguish, unsuccessfully to my mind, the promissory note in Abbott from the promissory notes in this case by holding that the promissory notes in this case have attained, by virtue of the appellant’s activities in Georgia, a taxable situs within this state. This distinction is, in my judgment, unsupportable by either reason, practicality, or precedent, and it falls in that category that I label "a distinction without a difference.”
Prior to today this court has not held that a nonresident lender that solicits loans in Georgia and appraises real estate collateral in Georgia, such lender not having an office or place of doing business in Georgia, has, by such activities through either employees or agents, established a "taxable connection” with Georgia so that promissory notes held by such nonresident lender outside the state of Georgia have acquired a taxable situs in this state.
The net result of today’s majority decision is that all nonresident lenders owning long-term notes secured by Georgia real estate have a sufficient "taxable connection” with Georgia so as to permit the imposition of an intangible tax on the notes. This is so because all nonresident lenders solicit in Georgia in some manner, and all nonresident lenders appraise Georgia real estate collateral by employees or agents. But heretofore such activities have not established a tax situs in Georgia for intangibles.
In Abbott we quoted in their entirety the first two headnotes contained in Davis v. Penn Mut. Life Ins. Co. 198 Ga. 550 (32 SE2d 180, 160 ALR 778) (1944), to show that a note, even though secured by Georgia real estate, owned by a nonresident who did not have a business situs in Georgia, could not be taxed in this state. In the body of the Penn Mutual opinion (p. 556), the court said:"... It has been in this country the all but unanimous rule to regard such intangibles as located at the domicile of the owner for the purpose of ad valorem taxation... The only exception to this rule of which we are aware is the business situs doctrine.” The court then went on to say at page 560: "Being convinced that the jurisdiction to tax *351intangible credits where no business situs is involved is in the state of the domicile of the creditor and not of the debtor, and that this view is based on solid reason and logic, we conclude, in accordance with prior holdings of this court, that the exaction of the tax in the instant case violates the due-process clause of our state Constitution . . (Emphasis supplied.)
The court in Penn Mutual then went on to restrict the "business situs” exception in the following manner: "Following the rulings of this court in Columbus Mutual Life Insurance Company v. Gullatt, Guardian Life Insurance Company v. Gullatt, Suttles v. Associated Mortgage Companies, National Mortgage Corp. v. Suttles, and Davis v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, supra, the credits evidenced by promissory notes executed by residents of this state, but owned by a nonresident and held by it at its domicile out of this state, are to be taxed only if derived from or used as an incident of property owned or of a business conducted by the nonresident or its agent in Georgia; and that is true although the notes may be secured by a mortgage on land situated in this state.” (Emphasis supplied.)
As I read all of the prior decisions of this court on this subject, the "business situs doctrine” exception which would allow taxation meant that the nonresident must have had an office or place of doing business within this state, thereby establishing a Georgia domicile, as distinguished from mere activities within the state by the nonresident or his agents such as soliciting loans or appraising collateral within this state. I read the recent Abbott decision, the Penn Mutual decision, and the unbroken line of cases cited in Penn Mutual as meaning that mere activities in Georgia, as distinguished from a business situs in Georgia, do not establish the necessary taxing connection with Georgia to enable the state to tax foreign owned intangibles.
I think that today’s majority decision has extended the "business situs” doctrine with respect to the taxation of intangibles as that doctrine has been heretofore applied in this state. I further believe that such extension of the doctrine is not in Georgia’s best interest as a matter of principle. Also, I believe that it would be more *352judicially honest to plainly overrule Abbott, Penn Mutual, and the unbroken line of cases cited in Penn Mutual, rather than attempt to make a distinction between the promissory notes in this case and the promissory notes in those cases.
I respectfully dissent.