Court Opinion

ID: 9844485
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:03:27.544825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:35.841526
License: Public Domain

WEBB, District Judge,
I concur in the Court’s opinion and present these additional reasons for my conclusion.
I see ambiguity in the prc-1965 statutes applicable to the taxation of the income of non-residents. If we compare, in determining the definition of “sources”, the key word in the statutes, the proposition, of location where labor is performed with the proposition of location of the compensation paying institution, we rightly conclude that the legislature must have meant the former. Barraclough v. State Tax Commissioner, 75 Idaho 4, 10, 266 P.2d 371. But; if we compare the first proposition with a proposition of location of the sole “business situs” or, if you prefer, the location of the “base of operations” for the day’s work, it is not nearly so easy to find the legislative intent from the statutes themselves. Fortunately, we are not this limited.
It is recognized law in this State that when a statute is amended, it is presumed that the legislature intended a different meaning from the statute before its amendment. Pigg v. Brockman, 79 Idaho 233, 244, 314 P.2d 609 (1957); Wellard v. Marcum, 82 Idaho 232, 239, 351 P.2d 482 (1960); Messenger v. Burns, 86 Idaho 26, 382 P.2d 913 (1963). This rule of statutory construction is helpful not only in determining the meaning of the new law but also in interpreting the old. 82 C.J.S. Statutes § 384, p. 899, Houck & Sons v. Ellis, 229 Or. 21, 366 P.2d 166, 170 (Oregon 1961). As the Oregon Court there states:
“ * * * any essential change in the phraseology of a statutory provision indicates an intention on the legislature’s part to change the meaning of such provision rather than to interpret it.” Id., p. 171.
In our case, there is not only a wholesale change in the wording of the new law (63-3027, I.C.) but there is a statement by the legislature that change is exactly what they intended:
“ * * * amending section 63-3027, Idaho Code, to change the method of allocating and taxing income from multi-state business operations.” (Emphasis supplied). S.L.I., 1965, c. 254, p. 639.
In the new law it is precisely stated that the income of a non-resident will be taxed where:
“* * * (3) some 0f the service is performed in the state and (i) the base of operations * * * is in the state * * *.” 63-3027(n) (3).
It follows, then, that if we now tax all of the income of a taxpayer in the plaintiff’s situation, and if the new law is a change, *180we did not previously determine his taxable income dependent upon a “base of operations”. Therefore, the first proposition was, before 1965, the correct one.
Moreover, I think it can be correctly said that the power of a state to tax the incomes of non-residents should be exercised only to the extent that the legislature clearly and unambiguously authorizes it. A court certainly ought not to extend the power of taxation beyond that necessarily contemplated by the legislature. To adopt the Tax Collector’s position in this case would be to do exactly that. The resolution of ambiguities in this area ought to be in favor of the taxpayer, not the state.