Chicago & Southern Air Lines v. Evans
Decision Date | 07 May 1951 |
Citation | 192 Tenn. 218,240 S.W.2d 249,28 Beeler 218 |
Parties | CHICAGO & SOUTHERN AIR LINES, Inc. v. EVANS. 28 Beeler 218, 192 Tenn. 218, 240 S.W.2d 249 |
Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Charles L. Cornelius and W. Ovid Collins, Jr., Nashville, R. S. Maurer and L. E. Black, Jr., Memphis, for appellants.
Allison B. Humphreys, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The complainant filed its original bill in the chancery court against the State Commissioner of Finance and Taxation to recover $8,077.65, which represented the total amount of taxes assessed against it under the State Retailer's Sales Tax Statute, the said amount having been paid under protest. Contention is made in the bill that it is exempt from all privilege taxes pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 34, Public Acts of 1949.
The Commissioner of Finance answered the bill and insisted that Chapter 34, Public Acts of 1949, was adopted solely to exempt aviation gasoline from the seven cents (7cents) privilege taxes then levied upon the storage, use, sale and distribution of gasoline by Sections 1126, 1127 and 1128 of the Code of Tennessee; that Chapter 245 of the Public Acts of 1949 was enacted for the purpose of amending the Retailer's Sales Tax Statute so as to apply the Sales Tax to aviation gasoline.
The two Acts which control the present controversy are Chapters 34 and 245 of the Acts of 1949. The caption of Chapter 34 is, as follows:
'AN ACT to be entitled 'AN ACT to exempt from the imposition of taxes upon the storage, use, sale and distribution of gasoline, such gasoline as is designed for use in airplane and aircraft motors and which is actually used in engines of airplanes or aircrafts for the purpose of propelling the same.'
Chapter 245 which amends Chapter 3, Public Acts of 1947, is as follows:
'Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, That Section 6 of Chapter 3 of the Public Acts of 1947 be amended by adding after the word 'Gasoline', which is the first word in the second paragraph of Section 6, the following words: 'as defined by statute in Tennessee, upon which a privilege tax of seven (7cents) cents per gallon is paid, and not refunded, or gasoline used for 'agricultural purposes', as this term is defined in Chapter 21 of the Public Acts of 1947.'
The chancellor sustained the defense made in the answer that the foregoing amendment to the Sales Tax Statute was to make the sale of gasoline, not paying a seven (7cents) cents per gallon privilege tax, liable for payment of the Sales Tax. His opinion is, in part, as follows:
The only errors assigned which reach the heart of this case are the following:
'The Chancellor erred in finding and decreeing that Chapter 245 of the Public Acts of 1949, which is an Act expressly amendatory of Chapter 3 of the Public Acts of 1947, had the effect of subjecting the privilege of storing, using, selling and distributing aviation gasoline to the tax levied on such privilege by Chapter 3 of the Public Acts of 1947.'
'The Chancellor erred in finding and decreeing that pursuant to the enactment of Chapter 245 of the Public Acts of 1949 the complainant became liable for sales tax on gasoline purchased by it, and, therefore, was not entitled to recover the taxes paid under protest.'
The argument is made by the appellant Air Lines that Chapter 245 does not, and cannot, repeal by implication the provisions of Chapter 34; 'that an amendment or repeal of Chapter 34 could not be accomplished by an Act expressly amendatory of some other Act, such as Chapter 245 of the Public Acts of 1949, which was an Act expressly amendatory of Chapter 3 of the Public Acts of 1947.' It is further insisted by the appellant that Chapter 34 provided an exemption from all present and future privilege taxes, and it was error to hold that Chapter 245 had any valid probative force whatever. The argument is advanced that the alleged amendatory Act is in violation of Article 2, Section 17, of the State Constitution; that 'an expressly amendatory Act cannot recite in its caption, or otherwise, the title or substance of more than one Act and avoid violation of the single subject clause of this constitutional section', citing Shelton v. State, 96 Tenn. 521, 32 S.W. 967; Turner v. State, 111 Tenn. 593, 69 S.W. 774; Cheatham County v. Murff, 176 Tenn. 93, 138 S.W.2d 430; and Brown v. Knox County, 187 Tenn. 8, 212 S.W.2d 673, 5 A.L.R.2d 1264.
It is a settled rule of statutory construction that repeals of statutes by implication are not favored, and will not be presumed unless there is an irreconcilable conflict between the later and earlier laws. Unicoi County v. Barnett, 181 Tenn. 565, 182 S.W.2d 865; County Board of Highway Com'rs v. Wilde, 179 Tenn. 141, 163 S.W.2d...
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