explaining that in prior suit, supreme court “held that payment under protest was a jurisdictional prerequisite to [taxpayer’s] challenge and dismissed the proceeding. Nestle then paid the $8,682,999 due for 2012 8 under protest and re-filed its challenge.”
How later courts described this case
- explaining that in prior suit, supreme court “held that payment under protest was a jurisdictional prerequisite to [taxpayer’s] challenge and dismissed the proceeding. Nestle then paid the $8,682,999 due for 2012 8 under protest and re-filed its challenge.”
- explaining that equal protection clause “keeps governmental decisionmakers from treating differently persons who are in all relevant respects alike”
- observing that " ‘courts remain hopelessly befuddled in this area’ ” (quoting Scott A. Keller & Misha Tseytlin, Applying Constitutional Decision Rules Versus Invalidating Statutes in Toto, 98 Va. L.Rev. 301, 312(2012))
- explaining that “taxable margin” is entity’s margin multiplied by percentage of gross receipts earned from business in Texas
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice WILLETT,
joined by Justice LEHRMANN, dissenting.
For the reasons explained in my separate writing in In re Allcat Claims Service, L.P., 1 I believe the Court lacks exclusive original mandamus jurisdiction in taxpayers’ constitutional challenges like this. In my view, the Court has stretched our mandamus jurisprudence beyond its constitutional and prudential limits. I would reaffirm those purposeful curbs on judicial power, not redefine them.
Mandamus is not a jurisdictional talisman to conjure instant Supreme Court review. As a constitutional matter, we cannot exercise original jurisdiction that the Constitution does not permit; as a statutory matter, the Tax Code disallows taxpayer suits like this; and as a prudential matter, deciding whether a statute is constitutional is simply not the stuff of mandamus.
All in all, because I believe the Court has disregarded settled doctrines to remake the mandamus remedy into something more ordinary than extraordinary, I respectfully dissent.
. 356 S.W.3d 455, 474-93 (Tex.2011).