Court Opinion

ID: 9790052
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:45:39.807481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:25.977777
License: Public Domain

SLOAN, J.,
specially concurring.
I concur only in the result reached in this decision, therefore, it appears necessary to express the reason.
The predecessor of the present state tax commission was first created by Oregon Laws 1909, ch 218. That act required “said Board of State Tax Commissioners”, as it was then called, to assess for ad valorem taxation the property of companies engaged in the transportation or public utility business. The classification or identification of the kinds or types of business whose property was assessed by the state tax commission has been preserved from that time to this. Initially, property owned by “all railroad companies, sleeping car companies, union station and depot companies, electric and street railway companies, express companies, telegraph companies, telephone companies, refrigerator car companies, oil and tank line companies, and of such heat, light, power, water, gas and electric companies. . .” (Oregon Laws 1909, ch 218, *408§4 (15)) was to be assessed by the state tax commission only; not by county assessors. This list has been added to by later amendments. Section 47 of the 1909 act provided:
“The terms ‘persons,’ ‘company,’ ‘corporation’ or ‘association,’ whenever used in this act, shall apply to and be construed to refer to any person, firm, joint stock company, association, syndicate, co-partnership or corporation engaged in or carrying on any business, the property of which is subject to taxation under this act.”
From the very beginning, therefore, the legislature has said that this kind of property shall be assessed by the state tax commission regardless of the legal status of the person or other entity who owned it. It was the kind or type of property that determined the basis of the assessment of the property, not the legal status of the owner. Section 47, quoted above, is now codified at OES 308.505 ( 2). It has been amended from time to time to include other specific organizations or legal entities which have come into existence since 1909, and who own or operate property of the land assessed by the commission. “Peoples utility districts” were added by Oregon Laws 1939, ch 343.
So long as the only tax involved was a tax levied upon the ownership of property and the tax was equally assessed the character of the person owning it was immaterial. However, when income and excise taxes were imposed then a distinction between individuals and corporations became necessary. Therefore, when the first corporation excise tax was imposed in 1929 the enactment providing for the tax, Oregon Laws 1929, ch 427, specifically excluded from the excise tax “Corporations whose .properties are assessed *409by the state tax commission.. . . .” There has never been any question as to what form of legal entity was excluded from paying the excise tax thereby imposed.
In 1955 the legislature saw fit to remove this exemption from the excise tax previously enjoyed by the companies whose property was assessed by the commission. If the legislature had desired to bring this group of legal entities who own or operate this limited form of property into the orbit of the already existing excise tax imposed by ORS ch 317, it could have been done very easily by removing the exclusion provision heretofore set forth. The legislature did not do so. Oregon Laws 1955, ch 592, as it relates to these particular companies or organizations, is a complete act within itself. It imposes an entirely separate basis of computing the amount of tax upon these peculiar companies in contrast to the basis of the excise taxes levied on other business corporations. And it defines the companies and corporations subject to the act by reference to, ORS 308.505 to 308.660, not by reference to ORS 317.010. It is the same designation, in different words, that was originally used to exclude such companies or corporations from the excise tax. It is just as easy to now identify the companies subject to the excise tax as it formerly was to determine who was excluded. This distinction is important. So much so that we should exercise the same caution as the legislature and not attempt to expand the meaning of the word “corporation” as defined by ORS 317.010 to include a municipal corporation.
When the legislature enacted the 1955 act it intended to subject all of the legal entities designated in ORS 308.505 et seq. to the excise tax except strictly *410individual people who owned property subject to assessment by the commission. The individual who owned such property was subject to the personal income tax act for any profits earned. For obvious reasons, therefore, the legislature excluded them from the payment of an excise tax. The remaining entities, whose identity for exclusion purposes had been companies or corporations whose property had been subject to assessment by the commission, were now, by the same identification, to pay the tax.
For the reasons expressed I am of the opinion that it was not necessary to resort to ORS 317.010 for a designation of the corporations to be subjected to the act of 1955. There is no occasion or need to hold that ORS 317.010 includes municipal corporations. This is the same reasoning as that adopted by the trial court in deciding this case.
O’Connell, J., joins in this concurring opinion.