Court Opinion

ID: 9513593
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:38:14.815547+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:56.003381
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Chief Justice,
concurring.
[¶ 31] I concur in the opinion Justice Maring has authored for the Court. I write separately only to emphasize this case was argued to the Court by the state Tax Commissioner on the theory the Commissioner has the authority to decide that the coupon books are tangible personal property which could be taxed at the value at which they were sold under N.D.C.C. § 57-39.2-02.1(1). I agree the Tax Commissioner is not given the authority to declare as tangible personal property that which is not such property.
[¶ 32] We were told at oral argument that when the coupons are redeemed for discounts or free products or services from the participating merchant, sales tax is collected only on the actual amount paid the retailer by the coupon holder.
[¶ 33] The authority of the Tax Commissioner to enact a regulation taxing the purchaser of the coupons, the coupon holder, for that part of the cost of the products or services represented by the coupon book was not the basis for the Tax Com-, missioner’s argument; rather, the argument was that the coupon book itself was the tangible personal property. Nor was the authority of the Tax Commissioner to require that the purchaser pay tax on the original purchase price, notwithstanding the coupon, an issue before the Court. For example, the Tax Commissioner, in the same section of the Administrative Code with which we are concerned, N.D. Admin. Code § 81-04.1-01-28, has enacted a regulation that states “[w]hen a manufacturer, processor, or wholesaler issues a coupon entitling a purchaser to credit on the item purchased, the tax is due on the total gross receipts.”
[¶ 34] So, too, the regulation provides sales of gift certificates or other forms of credit which may be redeemed by the holder for equivalent cash value are not subject to tax when sold, but “the value of these certificates is taxable when redeemed if they are redeemed for taxable goods or services.”
[¶ 35] Thus the issue before the Court challenged the rationale or method on which the Tax Commissioner premised the taxation of the coupon books. The question of whether the Tax Commissioner can collect sales tax on that portion of the price of good and services paid for with coupons was not before the Court and is not answered by the Court’s opinion except to the extent that the coupon book cannot be taxed as the sale of tangible personal property.
[¶ 36] I do not agree with the dissent that legislative acquiescence and deference to administrative agency interpretation justify the transformation of the sale of a book of paper coupons into tangible personal property for taxation purposes. Neither do I agree it is necessary to revise *214our case law on legislative acquiescence and deference to administrative agency interpretation. Legislative acquiescence and deference is more significant to me where the statute is subject to two reasonable constructions. Here, I consider the Tax Commissioner’s construction is not a reasonable construction of the statute for the reasons stated in the majority opinion. They are, after all, only tools to assist a court in construing a statute. They are not absolutes.