Court Opinion

ID: 9459110
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:10:51.749106+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:01.519165
License: Public Domain

BOREMAN, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
For the reasons cogently stated by the district court in Bob Jones University v. Connally, 341 F.Supp. 277 (D.S.C.1971), I respectfully dissent. I would add the following comments and observations.
Under § 7421 of the Internal Revenue Code, as interpreted in Enochs v. Wil*908liams Packing Co., 370 U.S. 1, 82 S.Ct. 1125, 8 L.Ed.2d 292 (1962), the burden upon one seeking to enjoin the collection of a tax is huge, indeed. A showing of irreparable harm, “such as the ruination of the taxpayer’s enterprise,” says the Court, 370 U.S. at 6, 82 S.Ct. at 1129, is not enough. It must be shown that “under no circumstances could the Government ultimately prevail.” 370 U.S. at 7, 82 S.Ct. at 1129. It would appear obvious that, as a practical matter, such a standard could possibly be met only in the most exceptional and unusual circumstances.1
The reason for this exceptional administrative power has been found in the “manifest purpose” of § 7421, i. e., that the United States must be “assured of prompt collection of its lawful revenue.” Williams Packing Co., supra, 370 U.S. at 7, 82 S.Ct. at 1129. However, the United States is not primarily concerned here with the collection of revenue. The district court expressly found that the “primary purpose” of the Treasury officials in threatening to revoke the University’s tax exempt status and tax deductible benefits to donors is not to assess and collect taxes, but through the use of taxing powers “to require private educational and religious institutions to comply with certain political or social guidelines.” 341 F.Supp. at 284.
The University contends, inter alia, that the threatened actions of the Treasury officials would violate the First Amendment in that such actions would (1) deprive the University of the free exercise of its religious beliefs and, (2) promote, benefit and establish other religions. It certainly is not to be assumed that the Commissioner is possessed of “administrative expertise” with respect to the question presented, or that his legal opinion is in any way entitled to exceptional weight. Indeed, it would appear to me that the threatened acts of the defendants may well be subject to serious challenge as arbitrary and capricious and beyond the scope of their statutory power and authority.2
The majority decision would permit the Government to irreparably damage the University by actions taken upon a legal determination by the Commissioner not directly related to any “tax law,” for a purpose not directly related to the collection of any tax, upon the merest chance that the Commissioner might be right. On the facts of this case, I can find no reason, purpose or justification for permitting the Government, absent proper judicial scrutiny going substantially beyond the “under no circumstances” test of Williams Packing Co., to so proceed against the University. Surely such was not the intent of Congress in enacting § 7421, nor the meaning of the Supreme Court in Williams Packing Co.
Under the blanket protection of unfettered authority over the assessment and collection of taxes claimed and assumed by the Treasury officials, they are undertaking to interfere with and destroy the constitutionally mandated free and meaningful exercise and practice of the long established, widely publicized and unchallenged religious beliefs of Bob Jones University. To permit such threatened action in these circumstances without affording the University a right to judicial consideration would tend to demonstrate that the age old phrase— “The power to tax is the power to destroy” — is literally true.
No case is cited by the Government which applies the strict Williams Packing Co. test in circumstances similar to those in the instant case. I reach the conclusion that the application of that test here may well present a question as to the constitutionality of § 7421.

. For instance, it is unlikely that this court would assume to state positively, in advance, what the Supreme Court would hold under any given set of circumstances. To do so would be presumptuous, indeed.

. The district court found that the University “has made a prima facie showing that the defendants have surpassed, or are in the process of exceeding, their statutory authority as granted to them by the Congress in the Internal Revenue Laws.”' 341 F.Supp. at 285.