noting that increased property taxes on vacation homes do not pose as great a threat to householder's standard of living as taxes or rent paid on a primary residence
How later courts described this case
- noting that increased property taxes on vacation homes do not pose as great a threat to householder's standard of living as taxes or rent paid on a primary residence
- court will not strike down enactment unless party attacking it clearly establishes that a constitutional provision has been violated
- statute authorizing homeowners and renters to file claims for refunds of state general fund free revenue was not an unauthorized exemption from taxation, as it was not inextricably linked to the payment of property taxes, or a rebate, and payments were made from separate state funds, distinguishing Armstrong, supra. See also,however, Maughan, J. dissenting, calling the Baker majority opinion an "astonishing performance," and highlighting the indirect violation of constitutional provisions
- one-year residency requirement in Utah statute authorizing owner or renter of "primary residence" to file claim for refunds of State general fund free revenue did not render statute impermissibly discriminatory against nonresidents so as to violate Privileges and Immunities Clause
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
WILKINS, Justice
(concurring generally with dissent):
I concur generally with the dissent of Mr. Justice Maughan, and add these comments.
What must be understood here, in my opinion, is that this statute, benign though the motives may have been the enacting it, is not some harmless detour of a minor legal principle. It is rather a major assault upon Article XIII of the Constitution of this State and the caselaw following and guarding it, both of which forbid inequality of taxation (except where specifically authorized in our basic document) — and indeed forbid that inequality regardless of the form of the mechanism employed to accomplish it. And it is no convincing argument, I submit, to say that Article XIII is, not violated here because none of the funds to be refunded by Section 59-26-1 originate from or are identified with property tax funds. Why? The Legislature in Article •XIII is the very body specifically charged with the solemn duty to “. . . provide by law a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation on all tangible property (at § 3 of Art. XIII) — and that duty is imposed without, of course, implanting the seeds of its own destruction by legally permitting the Legislature to accomplish indirectly a result when Article XIII expressly and directly forbids that result.
In short, though it may be gratifying and socially worthy to see public funds generously distributed by the State of Utah to tens of thousands of property owners (and *261 renters) in this State, that worthiness cannot, in my view, magically imbue the legislation here with constitutional validity.