Court Opinion

ID: 9574832
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:08:49.327526+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:45:32.782348
License: Public Domain

LATIMER, Justice.
This proceeding was instituted to prohibit Ogden City, Utah, from levying and collecting a license tax upon attorneys engaged in practicing law within its corporate limits. A temporary writ of prohibition was issued and plaintiff seeks to have the same made permanent.
Plaintiff’s principal arguments in support of a permanent writ center around an attack upon the validity of an ordinance as it is applied to attorneys. His assertions are primarily that the practice of law is not within the scope of the taxing powers granted to municipalities, and, since lawyers are not subject to regulation by municipalities, they are not subject to licensing by the same bodies. The city answers plaintiff’s contentions by asserting that since the ordinance was enacted solely for the purpose of raising *319revenue the power to tax or license is granted by Section 15-8-80, U. C. A. 1943.
On April 15, 1949, the Board of Commissioners of Ogden City, Utah, adopted an ordinance requiring that any person who engages in business within the corporate limits of Ogden City must obtain a “Business License,” the fee for such license to be graduated according to gross receipts of the business. The ordinance has its own glossary which provides that
“Business as used in this ordinance shall include all activities engaged in or caused to be engaged in with the object of gain or economic profit, but shall not include the acts of employees rendering service to employers.”
The glossary also provides that
“The words engaging in business as used herein shall specifically include, but not be limited to, engaging in selling any tangible property either at retail or wholesale, engaging in the manufacture of tangible property and selling the same for retail, and the rendering of personal services for others for a consideration by persons engaged in any profession, trade, craft, business, occupation or other calling.”
The principal disagreement between the parties requires that we analyze and interpret Sections 15-8-39 and 15-8-80, U. C. A. 1943. The former provides as follows:
“They (cities) may license, tax and regulate hawking and peddling, pawnbrokers and loan agencies, employment agencies, auctioneers and auction houses, music halls, theaters, theatrical and other exhibitions, shows and amusements, the business conducted by ticket scalpers, distilleries and breweries, brokers, and keepers of public scales; stages and busses, sight-seeing and touring cars or vehicles, cabs and taxicabs, and solicitors therefor; bathhouses, swimming pools, skating rinks; smelters, crushers, sampling works and mills; hotels, and other public places, boarding houses, restaurants, eating houses, lodging houses, laundries, barber shops and beauty shops; hackmen, draymen, and drivers of stages, busses, sight-seeing and touring cars, cabs and taxicabs and other public conveyances, porters, expressmen and dray-men and all others pursuing like occupations, and prescribe their compensation; may license, tax and regulate secondhand and junk stores and forbid the owners or persons in charge of such stores from *320purchasing or receiving any articles whatsoever from minors without the written consent of their guardians or parents; may license, tax and regulate storage houses and warehouses and require bond to the city for the benefit of bailors therein; may license, tax and regulate the business conducted by merchants, wholesalers and retailers, shopkeepers and storekeepers, automobile garages, service and filling stations; butchers, bakeries, laundries, druggists, photographers, assayers, confectioners, billboards, billposting and the distribution or display of advertising matter.”
Section 15-8-80, U. C. A. 1943, provides as follows:
“They (cities) may raise revenue by levying and collecting a license fee or tax on any business within the limits of the city, and regulate the same by ordinance; provided, that no Utah city or town shall collect a license fee or tax hereunder from any solicitor or salesman who solicits, obtains orders for or sells goods in such city or town solely for resale; and no enumeration of powers of cities contained in title 15, chapter 8, Revised Statutes of Utah, 1933, shall be deemed to limit or restrict the general grant of authority hereby conferred. All such license fees and taxes shall be uniform in respect to the class upon which they are imposed.”
The business of practicing law does not come within the scope of power granted by Section 15-8-39, U. C. A. 1943, since by expressly enumerating the businesses which can be licensed, regulated and taxed the legislature has inferentially limited the power of the cities to deal  with those businesses listed in that section. Therefore, if Section 15-8-80, U. C. A. 1943, does not grant additional power to a city and authorize it to levy and collect a license fee or tax on businesses other than those specifically catalogued, then Ogden City has no authority to embrace attorneys within the scope of the ordinance.
Plaintiff contends that the rule laid down by this court in the case of Ogden City v. Boreman, 1899, 20 Utah 98, 57 P. 843, 845, controls the instant case. There, the city of Ogden sought to impose a license on lawyers practicing within its corporate limits. The claimed authority for the ordinance under attack in that case was subsection 87, Sec*321tion 206, Rev. Stat. 1898, which provided that the city-council should have the power to
“raise revenues by levying and collecting a license fee or tax on any private corporation or business within the limits of the city, and regulate the same by ordinance.”
That subsection was the predecessor to Section 15-8-80, U. C. A. 1943. There was involved in that decision subsection 38 of Section 206, Rev. Stat. 1898, which in most respects was similar to Section 15-8-39, U. C. A. 1943, above quoted and which provided as follows:
“To license, tax, regulate hawking, peddling, pawnbrokerage, employment agencies, the keeping of ordinaries, theatrical, and other exhibitions, shows, and amusements, and the business conducted by ticket scalpers, distillers, brewers, money-changers, brokers, keepers of public scales, runners for stages, cars, public houses, or other persons or things, and to revoke such license at pleasure; to license, tax, and regulate banks, bath houses, livery stables, skating rinks, smelters, crushers, express companies, restaurants, hotels, taverns, theatres, opera houses, music halls, boarding houses, eating houses, chop houses, lodging houses, laundries, barber shops, second hand or junk stores, and to forbid the owners or persons in charge of said stores from purchasing or receiving any article whatever from minors without the written consent of their guardian or parents; to license, tax, and regulate the business conducted by hackmen, draymen, omnibus drivers, carters, cabmen, porters, expressmen, watermen, and all others pursuing like occupations and to prescribe their compensation; to license, tax, and regulate the business conducted by merchants, retailers, shop and storekeepers, butchers, druggists, photographers, assayers, confectioners, and fruit peddlers.”
This court held that those two statutes should be construed together and with relation to each other and in light of the fact that there had been a previous statutory provision, Chapter X, Sec. 288, subdivision 6, Compiled Laws of Utah 1888, expressly permitting cities to license lawyers, which was repealed at the time subsection 38, Section 206, Rev. Stat. 1898, was enacted. In determining the legislative intent the court gave consideration to the three following acts of the legislature: (1) specifically enacting *322subsection 38, Section 206, Rev. Stat. 1898, which enumerated the businesses that could be licensed, taxed and regulated by cities; (2) repealing the previous legislative enactment permitting license fees or taxes to be charged against lawyers; and (3) enacting subsection 87, Section 206. Rev. Stat. 1898, which was a general grant to cities to raise revenue by levying and collecting license taxes. Mr. Justice Miner, in speaking for the court, stated the reasons for the holding in the following language:
“By repealing the clause providing for licensing and taxing lawyers, and enacting the general clause referred to, leaving lawyers and the professions generally out of such re-enactment, impels the conclusion that the legislature intended to deprive the cities of the power to impose a license fee or tax upon lawyers that they had formerly possessed. There must have been an object and purpose in this deliberate repeal in one section and omitting to insert its provisions in the act as re-enacted, having special reference to licensing and taxing in cities. And, when subdivision 87 is considered with reference to subdivision 38 and the repeal of subdivision 6 of Section 288, it is evident that it was not intended that lawyers should be licensed or taxed under its provisions.”
The contention that the holding in the Boreman case should control would merit serious consideration if the legislative grant of power to municipalities to raise revenue by levying and collecting license fees had not been enlarged since the Boreman decision. However, Section 15-8-80, U. C. A. 1943, supra, contains an amendment which was made in 1935 and which provides as follows:
“* * * no enumeration of powers of cities contained in title 15, chapter 8, Revised Statutes of Utah, 1933, shall be deemed to limit or restrict the general grant of authority hereby conferred.”
This amendment removed the necessity of this court construing the two sections together to determine the legislative intent as the enumeration of powers contained in title 15, chapter 8, Revised Statutes of Utah, 1933, embraces Section 15-8-39, U. C. A. 1943. Plaintiff  concedes that the amendment may lessen the ef*323fectiveness of that part of the Boreman decision which deals with construing the two sections granting powers to the cities, but asserts that the reasoning of the court on the legislative intent as evidenced by the repeal of the section which specifically granted cities the right to tax lawyers is left unweakened. We see no reason why the 1935 amendment should not require a new approach to the whole problem. The effect of the amendment was to remove the shackles placed on municipalities by the legislative enumeration of specific types of business and give to them an unrestricted power to raise revenue by levying and collecting a license fee or tax on any and all businesses operating within the limits of the city. Since, by the amendment no existing statutory provisions were to be deemed to limit or restrict the general grant of authority to tax for revenue purposes, it seems unreasonable to expect that limitations, inferred from the repeal of a former section, even though given consideration by this court as one element in determining legislative intent, should remain unaffected by the 1935 amendment. Assuming that in 1898 the legislature intended to exempt attorneys, there is evidence by the subsequent amendment a legislative intent to remove the existing bars and grant power to raise revenue by taxation of businesses not previously subjected to tax. The legislature is presumed not to do a useless or futile act and so the only purpose of enacting the 1935 amendment was to grant to municipalities the power to tax those businesses operating within the city limits which had previously enjoyed immunity because of being exempted by limiting enactments or by their administrative or judicial construction. Moreover, in 1931, this court in the case of Morgan v. Salt Lake City et al., 78 Utah 403, 3 P. 2d 510, dealt with certain sections of the Compiled Laws of Utah 1917, which were the earlier enactments of, and in most respects similar to, the two sections of the 1943 code previously quoted. In that case, we held that Salt Lake City did not have the power to impose a license or tax upon the operator of a card room because the section of the statutes then in force and effect *324did not enumerate a card room as one of the businesses which could be licensed, taxed, or regulated by the city. At that time, the section included approximately seventy-five types of businesses, and, under the construction adopted by this court, the general section then dealing with the right to raise revenue was inapplicable because of the rule of construction to the effect that the expression of one thing (business) implies the exclusion of the other. It is a reasonable inference that the legislators in 1935, after having their attention directed to the facts that there was an apparent loop-hole in the statutes; that even though some seventy-five businesses were enumeraed in the statutes the listings were not all-inclusive; and, that some businesses which should bear a fair share of the tax burden were escaping, concluded that the simplest and most effective way of eliminating a technical rule of construction was to provide an amendment to section 15-8-80, U. C. A. 1943. To accomplish this the section was amended by prescribing that the express enumeration of powers of cities to license, regulate and tax, contained in the other sections of the chapter was not to be deemed to limit or restrict the general grant of authority to tax for revenue purposes.
Plaintiff next contends that Section 15-8-80, U. ■ C. A. 1943, supra, applies only to businesses which can be regulated by cities and since the practice of law is not within the city’s power to regulate, it is not within its power to tax. This argument assumes that under the statute the power to raise revenue by taxation of businesses and the power to regulate are interdependent. It is generally conceded that cities do not have the power to regulate the practice of law. However, the ordinance is not an attempt to regulate the legal profession, it is merely for the purpose of raising revenue for the city. The question, then, is whether the city may use the taxing power delegated to it by the statute when it may not use the regulatory power permitted by the same statute. We believe that the intent of the legislature, as expressed by the wording *325of the act, was that the two powers should he separable and that the power to levy a license fee was not made dependent upon the power to regulate the particular business.
In Ogden City v. Crossman, 1898, 17 Utah 66, 53 P. 985, the city of Ogden, for revenue purposes, imposed a tax of five dollars per annum on each telephone instrument in the city of Ogden. There, we upheld the tax, even though it was in excess of the amount needed for regulation. Mr. Justice Miner, speaking for the court, said, at page 78 of 17 Utah, at page 989 of 53 P.:
«* * * Under the circumstances, where, by the constitution and statute, express authority is given to raise revenue by levying and collecting a license fee or tax upon any private corporation or business within the limits of the city, and regulate the same by ordinance, it is held that the municipality is not limited to the mere expense of the regulation, but that it may impose a reasonable license tax for the purpose of obtaining revenue necessary to meet the general expenses of such municipality. * * *”
In the case of Matthews v. Jensen, 1900, 21 Utah 207, 61 P. 303, this court was considering the licensing of sheep by the Board of County Commissioners of Cache County. There, the author of the opinion commented on Ogden v. Crossman, supra, as follows at page 217 of 21 Utah, at page 305 of 61 P.:
“Whether or not that case was correctly decided, and whether we would now, upon further consideration, place the same interpretation upon those sections of the constitution, are questions immaterial here, under the view we have taken of this case. For all purposes herein, it may be admitted that the principles stated in that case, with reference to an ordinance passed by a city, apply with equal force to one passed by a county, and that the legislature has plenary power to authorize a board of county commissioners to impose a license upon occupation for revenue only, even in the absence of any regulation, police or otherwise, of the business. * * *”
In view of the wording used by the author in that particular opinion, we call attention to the language of Sections 15-8-39 and 15-8-80, U. C. A. 1943. The former starts with *326“They (cities) may license, tax and regulate” and then there, follows an enumeration of businesses which are subject to. both license ordinances and regulating ordinances. The lat-, ter section, however, starts out as follows:
“They (cities) may raise revenue by levying and collecting a license fee or tax.”
The difference in phraseology is only important because in the Matthews case the opinion contains the following language:
“* * * A mere tax imposed upon a business or occupation, therefore, is not a license, unless the levy confers a right or privilege as to the business which would not otherwise exist. So, a right to license a business or occupation does not imply a right to exact a tax merely for revenue, and where the object is revenue the power to license for that purpose must be conferred in unequivocal terms.”
It would appear from the wording of Section 15-8-80 that the power to license for revenue purposes was conferred in unequivocal terms and meets the test prescribed in the Matthews decision.
Even were we not able to diferentiate some of the principles announced in the Matthews opinion from those presently involved, it is doubtful whether the language relied on by the plaintiff is not dictum for the reason that the important principle announced in that case was that the tax was arbitrary and discriminatory. The court found that the primary purpose of the ordinance was to raise revenue.However, the Board of County Commissioners had singled out the sheep business and had imposed a license solely upon the business of raising, herding and pasturing sheep. The court refused to uphold the tax on the ground that it was unequal and oppressive and said, 21 Utah at page 227, 61 P. at page 308:
“* * * Private rights cannot thus be arbitrarily invaded or annihilated, under the mere guise of a license. One class of citizens cannot thus be compelled to bear the burdens of government, to the *327advantage of all other classes. The law, as we have seen, will not permit it. Neither the constitution nor the statute authorizes boards of county commissioners to enact ordinances, as in this instance, to tax citizens arbitrarily and unjustly, by license which confers no privilege that was not previously enjoyed, and which has no view to regulation. Unjust and illegal discrimination between persons, in taxation, and the denial of equal justice, are within the' prohibitions of the constitution of this state, and of the United States. No person can he deprived of his property without dud process of law.”
We think that pronouncement distinguishes that action from the instant case. Here, the ordinance is applied to all businesses within the corporate limits of the city of Ogden.
In Provo City v. Provo Meat Packing Company, 1917, 49 Utah 528, 165 P. 477, Ann. Cas. 1918D, 530, defendant was protesting the imposition of two separate municipal taxes, one an occupation tax on merchants who carried on business in Provo City and the other a regulatory tax imposed upon those engaged in the business of slaughtering and/or selling fresh meat in Provo. The court attempted to clarify the situation with regard to the imposition of those two types of taxes upon local businesses. We quote from pages 531 and 532 of 49 Utah, at page 479 of 165 P., Ann. Cas. 1918D, 530:
“* * * The term ‘occupation tax’ is, however, sometimes also applied to a license fee or license tax, and thus some confusion has at times arisen concerning the meaning of the two terms. Properly speaking, a license fee or a license tax comes within and is based upon the police power of the state to regulate or to prohibit a particular business. Such a fee or tax is primarily intended to regulate a particular calling or business, and not to raise revenue, while an occupation tax is primarily intended to raise revenue by that method of taxation. * * *”
After discussing the 1917 statutory provisions similar to Sections 15-8-39, U. C. A. 1943, and 15-8-80, U. C. A. 1943, as applied to the facts of the case, the court then said, 49 Utah at page 533,165 P. at page 479, Ann. Cas. 1918D, 530:
“Now, we have pointed out that, under our Constitution, both an *328occupation tax and a license fee or tax may be imposed. We have also shown that the Legislature of this state has clearly conferred both the power to impose an occupation tax for revenue purposes and to impose license fee or tax for the purpose of regulation under the police power, and hence the objection of want of power must fail.”
In keeping with the reasoning of the Provo City case it would appear the legislature intended that Section 15-8-39,. U. C. A. 1943, was to be considered as a delegation of power to municipalities to license and regulate certain businesses that required regulation to protect  the health, morals and general welfare of the public, while Section 15-8-80, U. C. A. 1943, was to be considered as primarily a delegation of the taxing power for revenue purposes, thus allowing cities to impose an occupation tax on those businesses which did not require close supervision' and regulation. We hold that such was the legislative intent and that the provisions are not interdependent.
The next question posed for consideration is whether members of the legal profession because they are part of the judicial branch of the government are subject to licensing by municipalities. Allowing the judicial department to maintain its independence, to control  admission to practice law, to discipline its members, and to prescribe rules for their conduct before the courts of the state does not require that members of the profession be exempted from the various civil and criminal statutes or ordinances of the state, county or cities. See Thatcher v. Industrial Commission, 115 Utah 568, 207 P. 2d 178. As members of the bar, their admission to practice and their professional conduct after admission are essentially matters to be regulated by the judicial department of the state. As members and citizens of the state, county and city, their rights, privileges and immunities, as well as their duty to pay a fair share of the expenses of government, like those of any other citizen, are controlled by the laws, ordinances and regulations of the political body of which they are a part and from which they receive *329protection. No one could reasonably contend that lawyers as a class are not subject to laws enacted pursuant to the police powers of the state or municipality and the members of the profession would protest any attempt to deny to them the services afforded by the various sovereignties. There is no rational basis for a contention that lawyers are privileged because of their calling and should not be subject to the provisions of an ordinance enacted for the purpose of raising revenue to defray city expenses unless there is a showing that the ordinance is discriminatory. A license to practice law issued by the state does not grant immunity from taxation. Under somewhat similar circumstances the city of Los Angeles imposed an occupation tax upon the business of attorneys-at-law. In the case of Ex parte Galusha, 184 Cal. 697, 195 P. 406, 407, the Supreme Court of California disposed of this same contention in the following language:
“As in the case of other professions or businesses which can be taxed by the state, the cases hold that the state can delegate to a municipality the power to impose a tax for the privilege of following the practice of the profession within the jurisdiction of the municipality. Goldthwaite v. Montgomery, 50 Ala. 486; St. Louis v. Sternberg, 69 Mo. 289, Id., 4 Mo. App. 453; Wilmington v. Macks, 86 N. C. 88, 41 Am. Rep. 443. The imposition of an occupational tax by a municipality upon those engaged in the practice of the legal profession is not an interference with state affairs. The mere compliance of certain prerequisites; in return for which a license to practice law is granted by the state, does not place a person beyond the range of additional regulation of the conditions upon which the license may be used. The municipality, in imposing an occupational tax upon attorneys, is not interfering with state regulations, for it is not attempting to prescribe qualifications for attorneys different from or additional to those prescribed by the state. It is merely providing for an increase in its revenue by imposing a tax upon those who, by pursuing their profession within its limits, are deriving benefits from the advantages especially afforded by the city. The tax levied upon the business of practicing law, rather than upon a person because he is an attorney at law. * * *”
Plaintiff, however, argues that the ordinance is discriminatory and arbitrary because it exempts those attorneys *330who are employed by other persons, firms or corporations. This argument is based upon the mistaken premise that this is a tax on incomes earned within the city  of Ogden, while in reality it is an occupation tax. Being an occupation tax, the classification is reasonable and not arbitrary because it includes all businesses operated within the city. There is no denial of equal protection, no invasion of the privileges and immunities of any class of citizens and the ordinance operates equally upon all persons similarly situated.
In the case of Slater v. Salt Lake City, 115 Utah 476, 206 P. 2d 153, we reviewed some of the authorities dealing with unconstitutional ordinances and discussed the elements necessary to render an ordinance invalid  because of discrimination. We quote from that decision, at page 160 of 206 P. 2d:
“This court has passed on the constitutionality of statutes and ordinances and has tested them by the rule of unjust discrimination. In State v. Mason, 94 Utah 501, 78 P. 2d 920, 117 A. L. R. 330; Broadbent et al. v. Gibson, 105 Utah 53, 140 P. 2d 939; and Wallberg et al. v. Utah Public Welfare Commission et al., 115 Utah 242, 203 P. 2d 935, we discussed the elements necessary to render a statute or ordinance unconstitutional because of discrimination. Discrimination is the essence of classification and does violence to the constitution only when the basis upon which it is founded is unreasonable. In fixing the limits of the class, the legislative body has a wide discretion and this court may not concern itself with the wisdom or policy of the law. Our function is to determine whether an enactment operates equally upon all persons similarly situated. If it does then the discrimination is within permissible legislative limits. If it does not, then the differentiation would be without reasonable basis and the act does not meet the test of constitutionality.”
In the instant case the purpose of the ordinance was to raise revenue. In order to accomplish this purpose the city of Ogden used the means provided and authorized by Section 15-8-80, U. C. A. 1943, by levying and collecting a license fee or tax on businesses operating within the city. The failure of the ordinance to include wage earners along *331with businesses is not arbitrary and capricious as employees are not persons similarly situated to those members of the profession who operate their own businesses.
Plaintiff’s last contention that this tax is in excess of the power delegated to cities because it is in the nature of an income tax must also fail. An occupation tax does not become an income tax because the amount levied  is based upon gross income. Using gross income as a base for determining the amount of tax may be considered one means of ensuring greater fairness and equality in taxation.
In Salt Lake City v. Christensen Company, 34 Utah 38, 95 P. 523, 17 L. R. A., N. S., 898, this court considered a license tax imposed by the City of Salt Lake, which tax •was based and graduated according to the amount of capital employed in the businesses conducted within the city. The court said at page 43 of 34 Utah, at page 525 of 95 P., 17 L. R. A., N. S., 898:
“Independently of the constitutional exception above discussed, the courts have frequently passed upon and applied the general constitutional provision demanding equality and uniformity of taxation. [Art. 13, § 3.] The decisions are almost, if not quite, unanimous that the constitutional provision which imposes equality and uniformity of taxation has no application to an occupation or license tax, but is limited to a direct property tax which is assessed and collected in the usual way. * * *”
There, it was held that the graduation of the tax rates made for greater uniformity. The court said that there was no method of taxation that is absolutely equal and uniform and that the method provided by that ordinance was to be left to the discretion of those whose duty it is .to impose and collect the taxes.
“Where neither the Constitution nor the statute imposes absolute restrictions, the courts may not arbitrarily impose any unless it clearly appears that the tax imposed is oppressive, or clearly and unreasonably discriminatory, and thus is an abuse of the taxing *332power.” At page 47 of 34 Utah, at page 527 of 95 P., 17 L. R. A., N. S., 898.
In the instant case, we are considering an occupation or license tax on businesses. The board of commissioners of Ogden City decided that a fair way to levy and collect this tax was on the gross income of the businesses concerned. That they based the amount of the tax on gross income does not constitute the imposition of an income tax. Rather, this is one of the permissible means a taxing unit may use in providing for greater equality and more uniformity in imposing the tax.
We reserve a discussion of the legal principles involved should Ogden City seek to collect a license tax from lawyers not engaged in business in that city. Facts have not been alleged which indicate that an attempt is being made to license out of city attorneys and so we have assumed that the ordinance will only be constitutionally applied to those members of the profession who maintain offices or places of business within the corporate limits of Ogden City. For the purpose of this action, Ogden City concedes the ordinance cannot embrace attorneys whose place of business is elsewhere than in that city.
The temporary writ of prohibition is recalled and the action dismissed. Each party to bear their own costs.
WOLFE and McDONOUGH, J., concur.