Court Opinion

ID: 9540697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:18:58.661922+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:00:12.305926
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE MORAN, specially concurring: The majority’s interpretation of section 13% of the Retailers’ Occupation Tax Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 120, par. 452½) has, in my opinion, excised one of the key provisions of the section, that being the effect of the words “after proper proceedings for the collection of such amounts, as provided in said Act.” The Act provides for proper proceedings, which include suit by the Department for a judgment against the corporation and the execution of such judgment (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 120, par. 444), or issuance of a tax lien (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 120, par. 444a) and enforcement of said lien (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 120, pars. 444e, 444f), together with, according to the last two cited sections, all remedies otherwise available to a judgment creditor. Generally, officers or employees of a corporation are not individually liable for the debts or tax obligations of the corporation, but, by enacting section 13%, the legislature excepted this general rule as it applies to the collection of the retailers’ occupation tax. A reading of that section, quoted in the majority opinion, clearly indicates the legislative intent to prevent abuse of the exception by providing two safeguards for the officer or employee against whom the corporation’s tax might, under the exception, be imposed: (1) The Department must first institute proper proceedings (as stated above) against the corporation and its assets for the collection of the tax and, after a determination that the corporation is unable to pay the tax, then (2) the Department must prove that the officer or employee having control, supervision, or responsibility for the filing and payment of the tax due willfully failed to file such return or make such payment. (I concur with the majority’s finding that the Department, in the instant case, met its burden in this last regard.) The two conditional safeguards are, in effect, rights granted by the legislature for the protection of an officer or employee. Under my interpretation of the statute, the protection of those rights would normally have made it necessary for the Department to follow through, by proper proceedings outlined above, to collect the judgment against the corporation (if only to determine that the corporation was unable to pay). Bublick, however, by his admission that the corporation was unable to pay, waived his protective right and relieved the Department of the obligation to proceed further to determine that which was already admitted.