Court Opinion

ID: 9851497
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:14:00.956697+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:03.271464
License: Public Domain

HOWE, Justice
(concurring):
While I concur in much of the majority opinion, I rest my concurrence on our decision in Mountain States Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Ogden City, 26 Utah 2d 190, 487 P.2d 849 (1971), a case not cited by the majority, where we held that for purposes of taxation a telephone company, a gas company, and a power company, which are monopolies regulated by the Utah Public Service Commission, comprise a distinct class of businesses within the public utility field. We concluded that an ordinance which was substantially similar to the ordinance in question in the instant case was reasonable and not discriminatory. See also Mountain States Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Salt Lake City, 596 P.2d 649 (Utah 1979). These cases are in accord with solid precedential authority of the United States Supreme Court in taxation cases, such as Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co., 410 U.S. 356, 93 S.Ct. 1001, 35 L.Ed.2d 351 (1973) (upholding a provision of the Illinois Constitution which exempts from personal property taxes all personal property owned by individuals but retains such taxes as to *892personal property owned by corporations or other “non-individuals”); New York Rapid Transit Corp. v. City of New York, 303 U.S. 573, 58 S.Ct. 721, 82 L.Ed. 1024 (1938)-(upholding an ordinance levying an excise tax on every utility but not on other business units); and Heisler v. Thomas Colliery Co., 260 U.S. 245, 43 S.Ct. 83, 67 L.Ed. 237 (1922) (upholding a statute taxing anthracite coal but not bituminous coal).
As to the complaint of the plaintiff that the ordinance in question does not tax other suppliers of fuel such as coal and wood which compete with the plaintiff, those suppliers do not escape taxation. They, too, are subject to the license tax of Salt Lake City, but they are classified and taxed differently from public utility monopolies.