stating that the purpose of an administrative exhaustion requirement in a North Carolina taxation statute is "to put the State on notice that a tax, or a particular application thereof, is being challenged as improper so that the State might properly budget or plan for the potential that certain revenues derived from such tax have to be refunded" (emphasis omitted)
How later courts described this case
- stating that the purpose of an administrative exhaustion requirement in a North Carolina taxation statute is "to put the State on notice that a tax, or a particular application thereof, is being challenged as improper so that the State might properly budget or plan for the potential that certain revenues derived from such tax have to be refunded" (emphasis omitted)
- holding that “the relationship between the Retirement Systems and employees vested in the system is contractual in nature, [and] the right to benefits exempt from state taxation is a term of such contract”
- stating that pension benefits are "a deferred portion of the compensation earned for services rendered"
- holding that "[n]otice for fiscal planning purposes is the touchstone" of the exhaustion requirement in a statute allowing taxpayers to sue to recover improperly collected taxes
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by N.C. Ass'n of Educators, Inc. v. State, 241 N.C. App. 284 (2015)
Specifically, the State contends that Brand, Faulkenbury , and Bailey are easily distinguishable from the present facts because those cases involved benefits that were automatically conferred on public employees by express statutory promises, whereas here, career status depends upon completion of a four-year probationary period and a majority vote of the local school board.
The opinion
Justice Frye
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
This Court has decided, in two very recent cases, one involving the same parties as in this case, that the protest requirements of N.C.G.S. § 105-267 are valid. I cannot join the majority in overruling those cases today. Accordingly, I dissent from the portion of the majority opinion dealing with the protest requirements of N.C.G.S. § 105-267.