Court Opinion

ID: 9808364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:36:05.836003+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:11:55.998952
License: Public Domain

AlleN, J.,
concurring: There are, I think, two insuperable objections to an- affirmance of the judgment:
(1) There was no opportunity given for the fair expression of the will of the voter. This question is fully covered in the clear and learned opinion of Justice Walker, and I do not care to do more than add one- or two suggestions to what he has so well said. There was one ballot to be voted at the election, and that was for or against a county tax. A majority of the votes was against a county tax, and because a majority of the voters in Kinston Township was in favor of the county tax, this by legislative construction, is to be held a vote for a township-tax. This method of submitting'a question to the people is coercive, is. calculated to mislead the voter, and does not tend to an open, honest and intelligent expression of the popular will. A voter who was in favor of a county tax and against a township tax could not record his-opposition to a township tax without voting against his convictions by voting against a county tax, nor did a voter in favor of a township tax and against a county tax have any opportunity to vote, and the fact that near four hundred of the registered voters did not vote at all indicates that many belonged to one or other of these classes. Again, a mischievous and dangerous section of the act, under which the election was held,, is section 5, which reads as follows: “That in case a majority of the-qualified voters at said election in any township or in the entire county shall vote in favor of said special tax, on petition of a majority of the members of the board of trustees of the school committee of any existing special-tax district within said township or county so voting, the county commissioners shall reduce the annual special local-tax levy of said district by an amount not exceeding the special levy provided for the county or township under this act.” This gave the opportunity to the voter of a school district having a special tax to cast their solid vote in favor of a tax on the rest of the county, with the absolute knowledge that they were not increasing taxes on themselves one cent because, immediately upon the county tax being voted, they could have this special tax decreased proportionately.
*587(2) The proposed tax is violative of the principle of uniformity of taxation required by the Constitution.
The tax which it is proposed to levy is on the property and polls of Kinston Township, but the school districts, which will receive the benefit of the tax, are not coterminous with the township lines. One district is'within the township, another is composed of parts of Kinston and Vance townships, and still another has in it parts of Kinston, Falling Creek, Neuse and Southwest townships. The children of Vance, Falling Creek, Neuse and Southwest townships will have the right to attend the schools of their respective districts without charge, and they cannot be required to pay any part of the tax, because this can only be levied in Kinston Township, and this seems to me clearly in opposition to the principle that one section cannot be taxed for the benefit of another.
“The principle of uniformity in taxation forbids the imposition of a tax on one municipality or part of a State for the purpose of benefiting or raising money for another.” Faison v. Comrs., 171 N. C., 415, approved in Hood v. Sutton, 175 N. C., 100.