Court Opinion

ID: 9618606
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:14:13.445424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:24.913307
License: Public Domain

CONNOR, Justice,
with whom BURKE, Justice, joins, dissenting.
I dissent from the holding which declares Ch. 22 SLA 1980 invalid. My basic reasons are (1) in the case before us the right of interstate migration has not been infringed, (2) even if the tax exemption statute is viewed as imposing a durational residency requirement as a precondition of receiving the benefits of the statute, it does not amount to a penalty on interstate migration, (3) the statutory classification complies with the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws under both the United States Constitution and the Alaska Constitution, and (4) in the field of taxation, legislative discretion is quite broad, and judicial review of taxation statutes should be correspondingly very limited.
I.
The right of interstate migration has been recognized as basic or fundamental in decisions of both this court and the United States Supreme Court. However, the source of the right is unclear,1 and its reach is not absolute. Our concern here is only with the right to travel as it is affected by durational residency requirements, and whether such- requirements must be invalidated as violating the equal protection provisions of the state and federal constitutions.
In relation to equal protection of the laws, the right has been applied to invalidate durational residency requirements in three leading federal cases. In Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969), the court struck down a one-year durational residency requirement which was a condition to qualifying for welfare benefits. The reasoning was that the residency requirement discriminated against persons who had recently exercised their right of interstate travel, that it amounted to a “penalty” on them, and thereby infringed a fundamental right. It subjected the requirement to strict scrutiny and found the justification wanting. The court was careful to point out that not all waiting periods would be unconstitutional, as they might either promote compelling state interests or might not amount to a penalty upon interstate travel. 394 U.S. at 638, n.21, 89 S.Ct. at 1333, n.21, 22 L.Ed.2d at 617, n.21.
In Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 92 S.Ct. 995, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972), the court struck down a one-year durational residency requirement for voting in state elections, applying a strict scrutiny standard. That case concerned both the right to vote and the right of interstate migration.
In Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U.S. 250, 94 S.Ct. 1076, 39 L.Ed.2d 306 (1974), the court invalidated an Arizona one-year durational residency requirement for eligibility for nonemergency medical care for indigents. The court there characterized the welfare benefits considered in *438Shapiro, and the indigent medical care in Arizona, as “basic necessities of life,” the denial of which should be subjected to strict scrutiny.
But other cases have demonstrated that not all durational residency requirements necessarily will be invalidated as infringing the right to travel and that they do not, therefore, require “strict scrutiny” under the equal protection clause. Starns v. Malkerson, 326 F.Supp. 234 (D.Minn.1970), aff’d without opinion, 401 U.S. 985, 91 S.Ct. 1231, 28 L.Ed.2d 527 (1971), and Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U.S. 441, 93 S.Ct. 2230, 37 L.Ed.2d 63 (1973), permit states to charge higher university tuition fees to persons from out of state than to residents.2
Finally, in 1975, the court issued its opinion in Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 95 S.Ct. 553, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975), in which it sustained a state one-year residency requirement as a prerequisite to filing for divorce. Nothing that Mrs. Sosna “was not irretrievably foreclosed from obtaining some part of what she sought,” 419 U.S. at 406, 95 S.Ct. at 561, 42 L.Ed.2d at 544, the court held that the state’s interest in assuring that those seeking divorce be genuinely attached to the state was sufficient to sustain the durational residency requirement. In other words, mere delay, rather than outright denial, did not amount to a “penalty” on interstate migration.
It is noteworthy that a number of commentators have viewed the Shapiro and Maricopa cases as having been improperly decided under either the equal protection clause or the right to travel. Professor Laurence H. Tribe views those cases as involving issues about welfare programs and poverty, and not the right to travel.3 Professor Michael J. Perry does not think that the equal protection clause should even have been implicated in those decisions, and that it would have been enough to strike down the statutes as simply interfering with the right of interstate migration.4 In his separate opinion in Maricopa, Mr. Justice Douglas thought that invidious discrimination against the poor, not the right to travel, was the basis on which the statute should have been invalidated. 415 U.S. at 273-74, 94 S.Ct. at 1089-1090, 39 L.Ed.2d at 324.
In Alaska we have also treated durational residency requirements in a series of cases. In State v. Van Dort, 502 P.2d 453 (Alaska 1972), we struck down a 75-day durational residency requirement for voting eligibility. In State v. Wylie, 516 P.2d 142 (Alaska 1973), we applied a strict scrutiny standard and struck down a durational residency requirement of one year for preference in state personnel hiring. In State v. Adams, 522 P.2d 1125 (Alaska 1974), which was decided prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Sosna v. Iowa, supra, we invalidated a one-year durational residency requirement for filing a divorce action.
On the other hand, in Gilbert v. State, 526 P.2d 1131 (Alaska 1974), we sustained a durational residency requirement of three years in the state and one year in the election district for candidates for legislative office. In that case we found that there was a “compelling state interest” in imposing such requirements, even under a strict scrutiny test. We later sustained a one-year durational residency requirement for candidacy for a city office, even under the strict scrutiny test, in Castner v. City of Homer, 598 P.2d 953 (Alaska 1979).
In Hicklin v. Orbeck, 565 P.2d 159 (Alaska 1977), reversed on other grounds, 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482, 57 L.Ed.2d 397 (1978), we invalidated a durational residency requirement as a prerequisite to obtaining jobs on the Alaska pipeline project. We employed the strict scrutiny analysis which *439we had used in State v. Wylie, supra. dictum in Hicklin, we said, referring to the Maricopa case, supra, that, “[w]e have never used this ‘basic necessities’ reasoning.” 565 P.2d at 163. In
A cursory reading of the Alaska cases might suggest that all durational residency requirements will be subject to strict scrutiny, but two important factors suggest a contrary point of view. First, our earlier cases on durational residency were based on our initial perception of United States Supreme Court doctrine, which has proved to be inaccurate. The United States Supreme Court has not stricken down durational residency requirements since 1974, and certainly has not expanded the right to travel as some kind of primary, absolute right which automatically sweeps away any other governmental power or interest which stands in its way. Second, in State v. Erickson, 574 P.2d 1 (Alaska 1978), we abandoned the traditional two-tiered approach to equal protection analysis which had been employed in our earlier cases. We adopted the new single test for evaluating equal protection claims under the Alaska Constitution. The nature of the new test will be discussed below.
From the vantage point of today, as compared with several years ago, it can be said that the right to interstate migration, like all constitutional rights, must be weighed and balanced against other legitimate governmental interests, whether the weighing process takes place in defining the limits of the right or in applying other constitutional precepts such as due process and the equal protection of the laws. In assessing the claim of any general constitutional guarantee in a specific fact setting, it is necessary to consider the degree to which the claimed right is impaired, and to consider whether and to what extent that impairment is direct or indirect in its impact.
Thus, in determining claims that a state law has infringed the right to travel, we must consider the degree to which the requirement is likely to deter travel, whether its impact is direct or indirect, and the importance of the state’s interests which are advanced by the law. Any other approach means a sterile application of rigid rules in situations which may vary widely in their factual and substantive content.
Seen in this light, our earlier decisions on such matters as voting rights and the right to seek employment are quite understandable. The right to vote has always been considered one of the freedoms most essential to the well being of our form of government, and our striking down of a durational residency requirement for voting in State v. Van Dort, supra, is quite in harmony with the similar action of the United States Supreme Court in Dunn v. Blumstein, supra. Similarly, the right to enter into a common occupation is deeply ingrained in our constitutional history. Therefore, it is not surprising that, whatever standards of scrutiny were used, durational residency requirements inhibiting that right should have been stricken down in State v. Wylie and Hicklin v. Orbeck. The case at bar, however, presents questions which are highly distinguishable from those which were presented in these cases of the past.
The Zobels argue that the tax exemption statute infringes their right to interstate migration. But the statute does not single out or penalize interstate migrants for treatment different from others who fall within the terms of the statute. The burden of paying state income tax falls equally upon all persons earning taxable income within the state, whether residents or not. The fact or length of such persons’ residence is immaterial. This includes nonresidents who derive income from Alaska, persons who spend part of each year working in Alaska, but whose primary residence is elsewhere, and persons who have resided in Alaska for many years but who have only begun to earn income in Alaska during a three-year period before qualifying for exemption.
This statute cannot, therefore, be said to set up a durational residency requirement as a condition to receiving its benefits. Indeed, as previously noted, the statute contains no residency requirement. It is understandable that the superior court was *440unable to conclude that any such requirement was imposed by this legislation.
Even if it is assumed that the statute does impose a durational residency requirement, the exemption is not a penalty on one’s right to interstate migration. The United States Supreme Court outlined its view on what constituted a penalty in Shapiro v. Thompson, supra, and Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, supra. In both cases, the Court was concerned with the fear and risk the traveler would endure if he could not obtain welfare benefits or indigent nonemergency medical care upon initial establishment of residency in the state. Maricopa, 415 U.S. at 257-59, 94 S.Ct. at 1081-1082, 39 L.Ed.2d at 314-15. The Alaska tax exemption does not present a similar risk, nor does it, in any sense, constitute a penalty.
Moreover, as compared to the state of the previous law, Ch. 22 SLA 1980 can even be viewed as an inducement to migrate to Alaska, instead of a disincentive. Take, for example, the case of the Zobels compared to that of a person who moved to Alaska in 1965. Under the law as it existed in 1965, one could only look forward to paying taxes indefinitely and quite probably for the rest of his resident life here. By contrast, a person moving to Alaska under Ch. 22 SLA 1980 is assured that his individual state income tax will be decreased by one-third for each year of income-earning residence, and will be eliminated completely thereafter. The Zobels, in that respect, stand in a better position than a vast number of residents who preceded them to Alaska and who incurred tax liability over a period of many years.
Given that the tax does not fall on every new resident and does fall on some long time residents, it is difficult to view the exemption as a symbolic penalty on interstate migration. If the tax was constructed as a direct tax on each person beginning residence in the state, the symbolic penalty would be clear. Here, the symbolism is weakened considerably because the tax does not operate exclusively on new residents.
II.
The remaining question is whether the legislation meets the requirement of reasonable classification which is mandated by the equal protection clause of the Alaska Constitution. As to this subject, we have held that a classification will be analyzed in terms of the legislative purposes of the enactment and the means chosen to further those purposes.5 If the purposes are legitimate and the classifications or means chosen reasonably further those purposes, the statute is valid. In explicating the manner in which we should judge the reasonableness of the means or classifications chosen by the legislature, we have also stated the test as whether the classification is “reasonable, not arbitrary” and whether it rests “upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.” Isakson v. Rickey, 550 P.2d 359, 362 (Alaska 1976).
Our adoption of this test, sometimes referred to as an “intermediate” test or an “intensified scrutiny” test, occurred because of dissatisfaction with the manner in which legislative classification had been treated in the federal system under the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution. There was nothing basically wrong with the verbal formulation of the federal “two-tiered” test. Rather, as is often the case in the judicial application of standards stated as generalities, the problem was with the way in which the test was applied in specific instances. The criticism leveled against the federal methodology was that it preordained the result in an unreflective manner. If the subject matter of the test required “strict scrutiny,” the burden of showing that the legislation furthered a “compelling state interest” was so overwhelming that the legislation was almost *441automatically invalidated. But if the legislation did not affect fundamental rights or employ a “suspect classification” and, therefore, was subjected to the “rational basis” standard of review, the federal courts often were willing to resort to conjectural or hypothetical purposes (as contrasted with the legislature’s actual purposes) in finding that the basis for the classification was rational. Needless to say, few statutes were invalidated as irrational under this latter test.
In both Isakson v. Rickey, supra at 362, and State v. Erickson, 574 P.2d 1, 12 (1978), we based our new or “intermediate” equal protection test on that suggested in a perceptive law review article by Professor Gerald Gunther.6 A considerable portion of his article was devoted to analyzing the United States Supreme Court’s (then) recent opinions under the equal protection clause as compared to the opinions of earlier years. He suggested that courts, and particularly the United States Supreme Court, should not, in applying the lower-tier “rational basis” test, resort to conjectural or hypothetical purposes in assessing whether the legislative means selected furthered a legitimate purpose. Instead, he proposed that the courts should look to the actual purposes that the legislature had in mind in enacting the statute under review.7
In the last analysis Professor Gunther’s plea is simply for judicial moderation, “a suggestion of a direction for modest interventionism,” 8 in the review of statutes under the equal protection clause.
This is hardly a new theme. In a tightly woven analysis of judicial review of legislation, Judge Learned Hand has pointed out the difficulty of discovering the constituent factors which underlie any piece of legislation, a task which he terms “a hazardous duty.” L. Hand, The Bill of Rights 37 (1958). Unless there were dissatisfaction with the existing status quo, he points out, there would be little need for a legislative enactment. The legislature must try to gain an understanding of the facts as they áre and engage in a “prophetic forecast” of the probable effects of the proposed law. As he states, it is extremely difficult for a court to ascertain the policy underpinnings of the statute:
“[N]ot only is it substantially impossible to forecast the remoter results of any social readjustment, but it is even more difficult to know how far the command will be obeyed. However, difficult as both these undertakings are, they are relatively simple compared with deciding whether the proposed change will be beneficial to the society on which it is imposed. That presupposes a choice and all choices depend upon an appraisal of the values and sacrifices to which the contemplated action will give rise. Values and sacrifices are incommensurables, not being made up of elements common to each other, unless they are themselves composite-which only multiplies the difficulty.”
Id. at 37-38.
What must be understood is that when we adopted the “intermediate” test for reviewing the validity of legislative classification under the Alaska equal protection *442clause, we did not achieve a magical liberation from the analytical difficulties presented by that clause. We merely took a position of moderation between what we perceived as the iron rigidity of the polar opposites of the federal “two--tiered” test. While the Alaska test may be less deferential toward the legislative means selected, it does not mean that we can substitute our will or judgment as to questions which are traditionally within the legislative competence. We must still remain sensitive to the complexity of many of the matters which are addressed by the legislature in dealing with the societal and economic problems of our age.
Similarly, although we require a “fair and substantial relation” between means and ends, this does not mean that we can ignore the context out of which the legislation emerged. It must be kept in mind that when the legislature deals with a group of problems in a comprehensive manner, it is unlikely that the solutions achieved will be simplistic, utterly symmetrical, or mathematically precise. If such resolutions were required, it is doubtful that government, in any sense that we have ever known it in the past, could any longer function.
After this prelude, we come closer to the problem which confronts us in this case.
One can best understand court decisions under the equal protection clause by placing them in their proper categories.9 Legislative expressions of socioeconomic policy are in a district category.
“The need for the pervasive regulation of socioeconomic life characteristic of government in advanced industrial society is generally acknowledged; and correspondingly, the notion that such regulation is constitutionally problematic is generally rejected. Consequently, most differences that serve as the basis of socioeconomic classification and regulation are perceived to be differences to which government may attach significance. They are deemed differences relevant to the legitimate aims of modern social policy.”
Perry, supra note 4, at 1071-72 (emphasis in original).
The tax exemption is not only in the category of socioeconomic legislation, but is also in the category of tax legislation. It has been long established that a state legislature, when it acts in the field of taxation, has the widest possible latitude in setting up classifications and rates of taxation. As the United States Supreme Court stated in Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U.S. 495, 509, 57 S.Ct. 868, 872, 81 L.Ed. 1245, 1253 (1937):
“It is inherent in the exercise of the power to tax that a state be free to select the subjects of taxation and to grant exemptions. Neither due process nor equal protection imposes upon a state any rigid rule of equality of taxation. This Court has repeatedly held that inequalities that result from singling out of one particular class for taxation or exemption infringe no constitutional limitation.” (Citations omitted.)
Similarly, in Madden v. Kentucky, 309 U.S. 83, 60 S.Ct. 406, 84 L.Ed. 590 (1940), which sustained a discriminatory ad valorem tax on bank deposits, the court noted that, “in taxation, even more than in other fields, legislatures possess the greatest freedom in classification.” 309 U.S. at 88, 60 S.Ct. at 408, 84 L.Ed. at 593.
One researching the matter will find that the cases are legion in which taxation systems have been upheld against equal protection attacks. When no other specific constitutional right is infringed and only the equal protection clause is relied upon, state taxation systems are almost invariably sustained.10
*443That the principle of broad legislative discretion is still vital can be discerned in the case of Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co., 410 U.S. 356, 93 S.Ct. 1001, 35 L.Ed.2d 351 (1973). In that case the Illinois Constitution had been amended so that individuals were exempted from personal- property taxes, but corporations and “non-individuals” were still subject to such taxes. The court unanimously sustained the tax against an attack under the equal protection clause, and in so doing drew heavily upon its earlier cases rejecting such equal protection claims.11
A recent decision of one of our sister states exemplifies the same principle. In Huckaba v. Johnson, 281 Or. 23, 573 P.2d 305 (1978), the Oregon personal income tax act provided for an exclusion from income of certain payments received under retirement systems established by the United States, but denied this exclusion to military retirees until age 65. The court sustained the statute against an equal protection attack. The distinction was permissible because of the generally lower age of retirement by military personnel and their consequent ability to enter second careers more readily than civilian federal retirees. Even though the statute would not create anything approaching parity between the two groups, and in some instances would produce a grossly significant difference, the court nevertheless sustained the provision. It held that general rules are permissible in devising complex tax systems, and. it is not necessary that the impact of taxation categories be the same as to each person affected by them.
It can be argued that these cases are not determinative because some (though not all) of them employ a conjectural rational basis test, not the Alaska test of equal protection. But a careful reading of these cases will reveal that they establish a far-reaching, underlying principle: that in matters of taxation the discretion and power of the legislature is at maximum, and the scope of judicial review or intrusion into the realm of taxation policy is correspondingly limited. Moreover, a close reading of some of the recent United States Supreme Court cases, discussed later in this opinion, will reveal that the court has been concentrating more closely on the actual purposes of the legislation being reviewed under the equal protection clause, and is not relying on mere conjecture or hypothesis as to the legislative purpose. Yet, as will be seen, these recent cases sustain the freedom of state legislatures to make broad determinations in matters of economic policy, taxation, and the management of the government itself. But, before moving on to a discussion of these recent cases, it may be helpful to place the matter of taxation and the equal protection clause in its historical context.
The notion that taxation policy is fundamentally a matter of legislative discretion, and that judicial non-intervention, except in certain discrete instances, is the norm, is deeply embedded in our traditional governmental structure. It is an old and constant theme in American constitutional law. It is, in short, a constitutional principle of first magnitude.
One of the seminal statements about the nature and operation of the taxing power was uttered by Chief Justice Marshall in his landmark opinion in M’Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat 316, 428, 4 L.Ed. 579, 607 (1819):
“It is admitted that the power of taxing the people and their property is essential *444to the very existence of government, and may be legitimately exercised on the objects to which it is applicable, to the utmost extent to which the government may choose to carry it. The only security against abuse of this power is found in the structure of the government itself. In imposing a tax the legislature acts upon its constituents. This is in general a sufficient security against erroneous and oppressive taxation.
The people of a state, therefore, give to their government a right of taxing themselves and their property, and as the exigencies of government cannot be limited, they prescribe no limits to the exercise of this right, resting confidently on the interest of the legislator, and on the influence of the constituents over their representatives, to guard them against its abuse.”
A similar view was expressed over a century ago by Thomas M. Cooley, widely regarded as one of the pre-eminent constitutional scholars and jurists of his time:
“The power to impose taxes is one so unlimited in force and so searching in extent, that courts scarcely venture to declare that it is subject to any restrictions whatever, except such as rest in the discretion of the authority which exercises it... . No attribute of sovereignty is more pervading, and at no point does the power of the government affect more constantly and intimately all the relations of life than through this power.”
T. M. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 479 (1868).
Mr. Justice Holmes expressed the same views in some of his trenchant dissents, which later became the accepted doctrine of the United States Supreme Court. In Schlesinger v. Wisconsin, 270 U.S. 230, 46 S.Ct. 260, 70 L.Ed. 557 (1926), a state statute classified gifts made within six years of death as gifts made in contemplation of death, and thereby taxable under the inheritance tax laws. A majority of the court invalidated the statute as denying equal protection of the laws. Holmes, J., joined by Brandéis and Stone, JJ., dissented:
“[I]n dealing with state legislation upon matters of substantive law we should avoid with great caution attempts to substitute our judgment for that of the body whose business it is in the first place, with regard to questions of domestic policy that fairly are open to debate.”

“[T]he law allows a penumbra to be embraced that goes beyond the outline of its object in order that the object may be secured.”
270 U.S. at 241, 46 S.Ct. at 262, 70 L.Ed. at 564.
This is merely a specific instance of a more general belief by Mr. Justice Holmes about the workings of our constitutional system, which he often voiced during his long span as a jurist. As he stated, dissenting in Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U.S. 312, 344, 42 S.Ct. 124, 134, 66 L.Ed. 254, 268 (1921):
“There is nothing that I more deprecate than the use of the 14th Amendment beyond the absolute compulsion of its words to prevent the making of social experiments that an important part of the community desires, in the insulated chambers afforded by the several states, even though the experiments may seem futile or even noxious to me and to those whose judgment I most respect.”12
As we have seen, the formulation of tax policy is at the heart of the legislative function. Because taxation affects such a wide variety of conflicting interests, and because the affected interests are often interrelated to a small or large extent, it is only right that the resolution of the contending socie*445tal and economic forces should be achieved through the tug-and-pull and the dramatic tensions of the legislative process. This thesis was articulated on one occasion by Professor (later Mr. Justice) Felix Frankfurter:
“Taxation is perhaps the severest testing ground for the objectivity and wisdom of a social thinker. The enormous increase in the cost of society and the extent to which wealth is now represented by intangibles, the profound change in the relation of the individual to government and the resulting widespread insistence on security, are subjecting public finance to the most exacting demands. To balance budgets, to pay for the costs of progressively civilized social standards, to safeguard the future and to divide these burdens fairly among different interests in the community, put the utmost strain on the ingenuity of statesmen. They must constantly explore new sources of revenue and find means of preventing the circumvention of their discoveries. Subject as they are, in English-speaking countries, to popular control, they should not be denied adequate latitude of power for their extra-ordinarily difficult tasks.”
F. Frankfurter, Mr. Justice Holmes and the Supreme Court 70 (1961).
That the doctrine of judicial non-intervention in the field of economic and social legislation enjoys vitality today can be discerned in a number of recent opinions of the United States Supreme Court.
In Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corporation, 426 U.S. 794, 96 S.Ct. 2488, 49 L.Ed.2d 220 (1976), a Maryland statute paid a bounty to scrap processors for destroying automobile bulks abandoned in Maryland. Maryland processors were only required to submit an “indemnity” agreement to claim the bounty, but non-Maryland processors had to submit documents of title in order to claim the bounty. The statute was attacked as violating the commerce clause and the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution.
The court held that the equal protection clause was not violated. Maryland could presume that in-state processors are more likely to destroy automobile bulks which were abandoned in Maryland than were out -of -state processors. It could rationally differentiate between those two groups as to the proof of title as a prerequisite of claiming the bounty. In this connection the court stated:
“It is well established, however, that a statutory classification impinging upon no fundamental interest, and especially one dealing only with the economic matters, need not be drawn so as to fit with precision the legitimate purposes animating it. That Maryland might have furthered its underlying purpose more artfully, more directly, or more completely, does not warrant a conclusion that the method it chose is unconstitutional.” (Citations omitted.)
426 U.S. at 813, 96 S.Ct. at 2499, 49 L.Ed.2d at 233.
In Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 99 S.Ct. 2282, 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979), the court sustained a state veteran’s preference law against equal protection attack. The statute provided that all veterans, male or female, who qualify for state civil service positions must be considered for appointment ahead of qualifying non-veterans. Although the statutory preference was available to both males and females, it was attacked by Feeney on the ground that the statute inevitably operated to exclude women from the Massachusetts civil service jobs, and thus violated equal protection.
Noting that significant numbers of non-veterans are men, the court was unable to conclude that the purpose of the law was to discriminate on the basis of sex. The court stated:
“Most laws classify, and many affect certain groups unevenly, even though the law itself treats them no differently from all other members of the class described by the law. When the basic classification is rationally based, uneven effects upon particular groups within a class are ordinarily of no constitutional concern. The calculus of effects, the manner in which a *446particular law reverberates in a society, is a legislative and not a judicial responsibility.” (Citations omitted)
442 U.S. at 271-72, 99 S.Ct. at 2292, 60 L.Ed.2d at 883.
Vance v. Bradley, 440 U.S. 93, 99 S.Ct. 939, 59 L.Ed.2d 171 (1979), sustained a federal statute requiring retirement of foreign service officers at age 60 against an equal protection attack.13 The court pointed out that when a statute does not create a “suspect” classification or burden a fundamental interest,
“[Cjourts are quite reluctant to overturn governmental action on the ground that it denies equal protection of the laws. The Constitution presumes that, absent some reason to infer antipathy, even improvident decisions will eventually be rectified by the democratic process and that judicial intervention is generally unwarranted no matter how unwisely we may think a political branch has acted. Thus, we will not overturn such a statute unless the varying treatment of different groups of persons is so unrelated to the achievement of any combination of legitimate purposes that we can only conclude that the legislature’s actions were irrational.” [Footnotes omitted.]
440 U.S. at 97, 99 S.Ct. at 942, 59 L.Ed.2d at 176.14
The overall purpose of the Alaska enactment at issue here was to grant relief from individual income taxation. One possibility was simply outright repeal of all income taxes. But some forces in the legislature apparently wanted to assure that persons should make some contribution to the cost of government before enjoying the benefits of a full exemption from individual income taxes. The plan can also be viewed as a way of giving some measure of parity between persons who had contributed to the cost of government in the past and those who would earn income but pay nothing if there were an outright repeal.15 Subsidiary *447goals are those of retaining a competent staff to administer the income tax laws of the state and of not saddling individuals with an empty and burdensome annual filing requirement.
These are legitimate purposes. It is quite permissible for a state to grant tax relief in a retrospective fashion as to a particular class of taxpayers or, conversely, to alter a taxation system so that one class remains liable while another class is relieved of liability. In Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co., supra, individuals were exempted from personal property taxes, while corporations still remained subject to them. This action was held valid by a unanimous United States Supreme Court against an attack based on the federal equal protection clause. Similarly, in White River Lumber Co. v. Arkansas, 279 U.S. 692, 49 S.Ct. 457, 73 L.Ed. 903 (1929), a statute imposed a retroactive tax on undervalued or underas-sessed lands of corporations, but not on similar lands of individuals. This law was also held valid under the equal protection clause.
Tax legislation, such as the law in question here, is often based on the social and economic values of a particular legislature. Because this involves difficult political judgments, courts should be most reluctant to intervene. In addition,
“[t]o stay experimentation in things social and economic is a grave responsibility. Denial of the right to experiment may be fraught with serious consequences to the Nation. It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”
New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262, 311, 52 S.Ct. 371, 386, 76 L.Ed. 747, 771 (1932) (Brandéis, J., dissenting). Taxation is an area of legislative activity in which compromise between fiercely contending forces is often achieved. Excessive and improvident decisions should be rectified by the democratic processes and by the political composition of future legislatures. It is not the business of the courts to determine broad questions of taxation policy, and judicial intervention is warranted under the equal protection clause only when the legislative treatment of different groups is so unrelated to furthering a combination of legitimate purposes that we must find the action of the legislature truly irrational. In determining what is rational legislative action, one looks for
“an affirmative relation between means and ends .... To a large extent, that is an empirical inquiry. . . . But such an inquiry would be neither mechanical nor value-free. Requiring compulsively neat logical correlations between classification and objective would ignore legitimate demands for legislative flexibility. The inquiry, like others entrusted to the Court, would involve questions of degree, turning on sensitivity to legislative realities and not on purely abstract considerations of fairness .... The line between means and ends will be drawn primarily in such terms of breadth of value judgments; it will present the most difficult questions of degree.” (Footnotes ommit-ed.)
G. Gunther, supra note 6, at 47-48.16
Limited guidance in these questions of degree is provided in Travis v. Yale & Towne Manufacturing Co., 252 U.S. 60, 40 S.Ct. 228, 64 L.Ed. 460 (1920), and Austin v. *448New Hampshire, 420 U.S. 656, 95 S.Ct. 1191, 43 L.Ed.2d 530 (1975). In Travis, the Court found invalid a New York tax scheme which, although it taxed residents and nonresidents at the same rate, granted New York residents some exemptions which were not available to nonresidents. In Austin, the operation of the tax provisions and exemptions allowed the tax to fall “exclusively on the income of nonresidents; ...” 420 U.S. at 665, 95 S.Ct. at 1197, 43 L.Ed.2d at 537-38 (emphasis supplied). The similarity in the two cases is that the tax imposed obligations directly related to one’s residency. In contrast, the Alaska exemption does not automatically tax nonresidents to the exclusion of residents. At the same time, the exemption does substantially further the legislative goals of assuring contribution from persons for the cost of government before enjoying the full exemption, and of achieving some degree of parity between new taxpayers and those who have made earlier contributions. In addition, the legislation provides a means to continue to train a competent staff of tax administrators. The state could have provided an exemption for all taxpayers, but still could have required returns to be filed for training purposes. This would be of little value for the state tax administrators because there would be no money at stake and it would saddle individuals with an empty and burdensome annual filing requirement. The present exemption, or a number of alternative provisions, could substantially achieve the legislative purposes.
In the area of taxation and socioeconomic legislation, our function is not to choose for the legislature the provision that would most precisely fit its stated purposes. We need only look at whether the methods are a rational means of achieving the goals.17 Since the Alaska tax exemption does not discriminate between residents and nonresidents and because it substantially meets its purposes, I would hold that the statutory classification is rationally related to its legitimate purposes. Thus, I would declare the tax exemption statute to be valid, and would reverse the judgment of the superior court.

. In Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112, 216, 91 S.Ct. 260, 310, 27 L.Ed.2d 272, 333 (1970), Harlan, J., dissenting in part, described the right as a “nebulous judicial construct.”
Perhaps the best basis of the right is not that it flows from any particular constitutional provision, but that it is fundamental to a federal union. Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 629-30, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 1328-1329, 22 L.Ed.2d 600, 612-13 (1969); United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745, 757-58, 86 S.Ct. 1170, 1177-1178, 16 L.Ed.2d 239, 249 (1966). This gives the right an indefinite nature.

.In Vlandis, 412 U.S. at 452-53, 93 S.Ct. at 2236-2237, 37 L.Ed.2d at 72, the court invalidated an “irrebuttable presumption” of nonresi-dency on due process grounds, but still recognized that a state could, for equal protection purposes, validly distinguish between residents and nonresidents in setting tuition.

. L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 1003-05, 1118 (1978).

. M. Perry, “Modern Equal Protection, A Conceptualization and Appraisal,” 79 Colum.L.Rev. 1023, 1075 (1979).

. Hilbers v. Municipality of Anchorage, 611 P.2d 31 (Alaska 1980); Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission v. Apokedak, 606 P.2d 1255 (Alaska 1980); State v. Erickson, 574 P.2d 1 (Alaska 1978); Isakson v. Rickey, 550 P.2d 359 (Alaska 1976).

. G. Gunther, “Foreward, In Search of Evolving Doctrine on a Changing Court: A Model for a Newer Equal Protection,” 86 Harv.L.Rev. 1 (1972). The article was part of the annual review and appraisal of the 1971 term of the United States Supreme Court.

. Even the ascertainment of purposes under the Gunther model is somewhat elastic. One approach which he suggests is that courts look to the purposes articulated by the legislature in the process of the enactment of a law. Id. at 44-46. But he also suggests that the purposes articulated by the defenders of the law, i. e., the state’s legal representatives, should be accepted: “A state court’s or attorney general office’s description of purpose should be acceptable.” Id. at 47.
He concedes that, “identifying the purposes against which the means are to be measured is not a simple undertaking.” Id. at 46. And, most relevant to the case at bar, he states:
“A legislature may legitimately have a multiplicity of purposes, especially in carving exceptions from the scope of a general statute. Court inquiry should not be limited to a primary purpose; subsidiary purposes may also support the rationality of a means.”
Id. at 47.

.Id. at 48.

. Challenges under the equal protection clause are treated differently according to the classifications they establish and the means the legislature chooses. For enumeration and discussion of the major categories, see G. Gunther, Constitutional Law (9th ed. 1975); L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law (1978); M. Perry, supra note 4.

. Statutes which directly impair a specific, separate constitutional right must, of course, be invalidated. Thus in Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 56 S.Ct. 444, 80 L.Ed. 660 (1936), the court struck down under the First Amendment a tax which discriminated against newspapers. Taxes which discriminate against interstate commerce are similarly inval-*443¡dated. See Michigan-Wisconsin Pipe Line Co. v. Calvert, 347 U.S. 157, 74 S.Ct. 396, 98 L.Ed. 583 (1954).

. Allied Stores of Ohio v. Bowers, 358 U.S. 522, 526-27, 79 S.Ct. 437, 440-441, 3 L.Ed.2d 480, 484-85 (1959); Magnano Co. v. Hamilton, 292 U.S. 40, 44-47, 54 S.Ct. 599, 601-602, 78 L.Ed. 1109, 1114-16 (1934); Lawrence v. State Tax Commission, 286 U.S. 276, 283, 52 S.Ct. 556, 558, 76 L.Ed. 1102, 1107-08 (1932); White River Lumber Co. v. Arkansas, 279 U.S. 692, 49 S.Ct. 457, 73 L.Ed. 903 (1929); Madden v. Kentucky, 309 U.S. 83, 60 S.Ct. 406, 84 L.Ed. 590 (1940); Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U.S. 495, 57 S.Ct. 868, 81 L.Ed. 1245 (1937).

. Similarly, Holmes, J., dissenting in Tyson v. Banton, 273 U.S. 418, 446, 47 S.Ct. 426, 433, 71 L.Ed. 718, 729 (1927), said:
“I think the proper course is to recognize that a state legislature can do whatever it sees fit to do unless it is restrained by some express prohibition in the Constitution of the United States or of the state, and that courts should be careful not to extend such prohibitions beyond their obvious meaning by reading into them conceptions of public policy that .the particular court may happen to entertain."

. Equal protection was here invoked as a component of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

. In Massachussets Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 96 S.Ct. 2562, 49 L.Ed.2d 520 (1976) (per curiam), the court sustained a state law requiring uniformed police officers to retire at age 50 against an equal protection challenge. “Perfection in making the necessary classification is neither possible nor necessary.” 427 U.S. at 314, 96 S.Ct. at 2567, 49 L.Ed.2d at 525 (citation omitted).
“That the state chooses not to determine fitness more precisely through individualized testing after 50 is not to say that the objective of assuring physical fitness is not rationally furthered by a maximum-age limitation. It is only to say that with regard to the interest of all concerned, the state perhaps has not chosen the best means to accomplish this purpose.” (Footnote omitted.)
427 U.S. at 316, 96 S.Ct. at 2568, 49 L.Ed.2d at 526.

. There is some question whether achieving parity by accounting for past tax contributions is a permissible state goal. In Shapiro, 394 U.S. at 632, 89 S.Ct. at 1330, 22 L.Ed.2d at 614, the court noted
“that the challenged classification may be sustained as an attempt to distinguish between new and old residents on the basis of the contribution they have made to the community through the payment of taxes.. . . [That] would permit the states to apportion all benefits and services according to the past contributions of its citizens. The Equal Protection Clause prohibits such an apportionment of state services.” (Footnote omitted.)
However, the Court later sustained one-year residency requirements for lower in-state university tuition. Starns v. Malkerson, 326 F.Supp. 234 (D.Minn.1970), aff’d without opinion, 401 U.S. 985, 91 S.Ct. 1231, 28 L.Ed.2d 527 (1971); Kirk v. Board of Regents, 273 Cal.App.2d 430, 78 Cal.Rptr. 260 (1969), appeal dismissed, 396 U.S. 554, 90 S.Ct. 754, 24 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970). In both Kirk and Starns, the states justified the tuition differential based on goals of cost equalization and contribution to the state’s economy. Starns, 326 F.Supp. at 240, Kirk 78 Cal.Rptr. at 269. Although in Vlandis, 412 U.S. at 450 n.6, 93 S.Ct. at 2235 n.6, 37 L.Ed.2d at 70 n.6, the Court repeated its concern that classification based on past contributions raised “grave problems under the Equal Protection Clause,” that rationale was not part of the decision.
It appears that the Supreme Court was concerned that a state would limit essential public services, such as parks, schools, police and fire protection, see Shapiro, 394 U.S. at 632, 89 S.Ct. at 1330, 22 L.Ed.2d at 614, to those who had made past contributions. The tax exemption is neither a public benefit or service of the kind described. I am persuaded by the dissenting opinions in both Shapiro and Viandis, that cost equalization is a permissible goal. Vlandis, 412 U.S. at 468-69, 93 S.Ct. at 2244-2245, *44737 L.Ed.2d at 81 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting with whom Douglas, J., joins); Shapiro, 394 U.S. at 673-74, 89 S.Ct. at 1352, 22 L.Ed.2d at 638 (Harlan, J., dissenting).

. The application of the abstract notion of equality has perplexed thinkers throughout the ages. For example,
“In a socialistic system, you’re no better or no worse than anybody else.”
“But that’s equality!”
“.. .. Equality is not in regarding different things similarly, equality is in regarding different things differently.”
T. Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker 97 (1980). See also E. Bodenheimer, Power, Law, and Society 180-84 (1973).

. “The equal protection clause imposes no rigid rule of equality of taxation. Inequalities which may result in singling out one particular class for a reduction in taxatidh are not prohibited. Only if the classification has no rational basis and is patently arbitrary may it be set aside as unconstitutionally discriminatory.”
Desco Products Caribbean, Inc. v. Government of Virgin Islands, 511 F.2d 1157, 1160 (3rd Cir. 1975).