Court Opinion

ID: 6655725
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-20 20:57:36.799782+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:59:54.468540
License: Public Domain

Barnes, J.,
concurring.
The only question in this case is, whether or not the act of 1887, providing for a tax upon the net premiums of insurance' companies, repeals so much of the insurance law of 1873 as provides for what is commonly called “The reciprocal tax.”
An examination of our legislation affecting this question shows that the law relating to insurance companies, above mentioned, was passed at the legislative session of 1873, and has remained substantially the same from that day to this. Further examination discloses that when the general revenue law of 1879 was enacted it contained a section, to wit, section 38, almost identical in form and substance with the act of 1873, above mentioned, except that it provided for taxing insurance companies upon their gross premiums instead of their net premiums. In the act of 1879 it was provided:
“Insurance companies shall be subject to no other taxation, under the laws of this state, except taxes on real estate, and the fees imposed by the chapter on insurance.”
Under this law, which was in force from the time of its enactment until 1887, no claim was ever made that the clause, above quoted, .repealed the reciprocal tax law, either directly or by implication. On the contrary, the reciprocal tax was collected from, and paid by, all foreign insurance companies doing business in this state subject to taxation under the terms thereof, without objection. The act of 1887 (ch. 77, sec. 38), however, contains the following:
“Insurance companies shall be subject to no other tax, fees or licenses, under the laws of this state, except taxes on real estate, and the fees imposed by section 32 of an act *346regulating insurance • companies, passed February 25, 1873.”
It will be observed that there is a slight difference in the wording of the two provisions, but they are in substance much the same. To me it seems quite doubtful if the legislature intended to change that part of the law relating to the reciprocal tax. Without doubt it was the intention of the lawmakers not to interfere with the operation of that law at all.
It is contended, however, that the clause in the law of 1887, last above quoted, repeals the reciprocal tax law, known as section 33 of the Compiled Statutes, relating to insurance companies. The repealing clause found in section 2 of the act of 1887 does not repeal section 33 of the statutes relating to insurance companies, in express terms; so, if that section is repealed at all thereby, it is by implication, and because it is in direct conflict with the clause last above quoted. Nothing else in the act of 1887 can be construed to affect the reciprocal tax law in any manner whatever. It is our unanimous opinion that so much of the last mentioned act as is quoted above is unconstitutional and void, because it exempts insurance companies from taxation on their personal property. It follows, then, that this clause falls to the ground, it goes out of the statute, and the law stands the same as though it had never existed, and had never been passed by the legislature, for any purpose. Conceding now the correctness of the view that the first clause of the act of 1887, which provides for taxing insurance companies upon their net premiums, is good and can be enforced, and must therefore stand, it by no means follows that the act operates to repeal the reciprocal tax law. That part of the act relating to the taxation of insurance companies upon their net premiums does not conflict with the reciprocal tax law in any manner whatever; and there has been no suggestion that both of these laws can not stand and be enforced together. We have, then, the proposition that the clause of the act which may be held to be valid is not in *347conflict with, and therefore does not repeal, the reciprocal tax law by implication or otherwise. And that portion of the statute which, if valid, might have that effect, being unconstitutional and void, and discarded and rejected for every and all purposes, the reciprocal tax law is in no wise affected thereby. See laws of 1873, p. 443; laws of 1879, p. 291, section 38; laws of 1887, p. 569.