Court Opinion

ID: 9793863
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:54:34.301838+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:05:46.058111
License: Public Domain

CORCORAN, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In holding that the classification created by AR.S. § 42-705(0 violates the uniformity clause, the majority departs from long-standing rationale adopted by this court in both Apache County and Trico. Those cases clearly indicate that the uniformity clause places no restrictions on the way in which the legislature initially classifies property for the purposes of taxation. As this court stated in Apache County:
[Article 9, § 1] does not itself classify property nor does it purport to embrace a scheme for the classification of property. The power to classify is legislative —
Apache County, 106 Ariz. at 359, 476 P.2d at 660. This court has further stated that “[t]he only restraint placed upon the legislature by this provision is that when property has once been classified the rate must be uniform upon all property of the same class.” Apache County, 106 Ariz. at 359, 476 P.2d at 660 (emphasis added); accord Trico, 151 Ariz. at 548, 729 P.2d at 902. Assuming—as does the majority—that the legislature intended to divide “flight property” into two separate subclasses, the plain language of both Apache County and Trico demonstrates *536that the uniformity clause does not prevent it from doing so.
In an attempt to distinguish Apache County and Trico from this case, however, the majority maintains that the basis for upholding the classification schemes at issue in those cases was “the difference in the nature of the industries in which the property was put to use.” Although the difference between the relevant industries in Apache County is readily apparent, the same cannot be said of Trico. In Trico, this court upheld a classification scheme that placed the property of electric and gas distribution utilities in a class different from the property of water and gas pipeline utilities. 151 Ariz. at 548, 729 P.2d at 902. One could plausibly argue that the property of each type of utility company was indeed used by owners in the same industry—i.e., the utility industry.
In my view, any attempt to distinguish this ease from Apache County and Trico fails. The relevant difference, if any, between the two types of utility companies in Trico appears to be a disparity in the type of business operated by each property owner. The same is true in this case—i.e., “small” airlines differ from “large” airlines such as America West in that they provide only statewide or local air transportation rather than full service air transportation.
The “standard” announced by the majority today will only foster unprincipled, ad hoc determinations by this court as to what constitutes the “relevant industry” for purposes of analysis under the uniformity clause. As such, the opinion does not clarify the limitation, if any, that the uniformity clause places. upon the legislature’s power to classify property for purposes of taxation.