Great Northern Nekoosa Corp. v. Board of Tax Assessors of Early County, s. 35152
| Citation | 244 Ga. 624,261 S.E.2d 346 |
| Decision Date | 06 November 1979 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 35152,35173,s. 35152 |
| Parties | GREAT NORTHERN NEKOOSA CORPORATION v. BOARD OF TAX ASSESSORS OF EARLY COUNTY, Georgia (two cases). |
| Court | Supreme Court of Georgia |
Alston, Miller & Gaines, Oscar N. Persons, B. Harvey Hill, Jr., Michael G. Wasserman, Atlanta, Philip Sheffield,, Blakely, for appellant.
Thomas H. Baxley, Blakely, for appellee.
In 1977 and 1978, Great Northern Nekoosa Corporation enlarged its Great Southern Paper Company paper mill facilities in Early County, Georgia, at the alleged cost of $6,429,329. Great Northern's 1978 ad valorem tax assessment from Early County was based in part on this enlargement. Great Northern challenged the inclusion of the enlargement by the Board of Tax Assessors before the Early County Board of Equalization on the ground that it was exempt from the tax pursuant to a local amendment to the Georgia Constitution referred to herein as the Early County Amendment. Ga.L.1962, p. 808. The Equalization Board affirmed the original assessment.
Great Northern appealed to the Superior Court of Early County, both as to the exemption issue and as to an additional question of property valuation. Great Northern and the Board of Tax Assessors each moved for summary judgment on the exemption issue. Great Northern's motion was denied and the board's was granted. Great Northern appealed the grant of the board's motion for summary judgment directly to this court and filed a petition for immediate review, which was granted, as to the denial of its motion for summary judgment. These two appeals were consolidated.
In granting summary judgment to the Board of Tax Assessors, the trial court upheld the board's contentions that the Early County Amendment violated the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution, and that, alternatively, Great Northern was not entitled to the exemption because the Amendment allows discretion in the board as to who shall be exempt. Great Northern appeals from both of these rulings.
1. Preliminarily, Great Northern argues that the trial court erred in failing to rule that the appellee board, as an agent of the county, lacked standing to challenge a local constitutional amendment on federal constitutional grounds. Great Northern relies on Williams v. Baltimore, 289 U.S. 36, 53 S.Ct. 431, 77 L.Ed. 1015 (1933).
Because we have determined that the amendment does not violate equal protection or due process, it is unnecessary for us to decide in this case the more difficult question of whether a county has any standing to challenge a state constitutional provision on fourteenth amendment grounds.
2. The local constitutional amendment at issue provides as follows: Ga.L.1962, pp. 808, 809. (Emphasis supplied.)
In holding this local amendment unconstitutional under the federal constitution, the trial court relied on Smith v. State, 222 Ga. 552, 150 S.E.2d 868 (1966). In Smith, this court sustained a constitutional challenge based on the due process and equal protection clauses of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution to a local constitutional amendment of Telfair County. Ga.L.1960, p. 1400. This court held that to survive constitutional attack, an amendment providing for issue by the county of Revenue bonds must limit the issuance of the bonds to situations involving public purposes; i. e., the court held that spending public funds for private purposes would violate the fourteenth amendment. Smith, supra, 222 Ga. at 556-557, 150 S.E.2d 868.
Smith v. State, supra, is inapposite here. The Early County amendment merely provides a tax exemption; it does not involve the expenditure of public funds for private purposes. Thus the rule to be applied is found in Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co., 410 U.S. 356, 359, 93 S.Ct. 1001, 1003, 35 L.Ed.2d 351 (1973): "Where taxation is concerned and no specific federal right, apart from equal protection, is imperiled, the States have large leeway in making classifications and drawing lines which in their judgment produce reasonable systems of taxation." Lehnhausen involved a corporation challenging Illinois' exemption of individuals from personal property taxation. Applying that principle, we hold that the Early County amendment is well within the parameters of the equal protection clause. 1 See Kahn v. Shevin, 416 U.S. 351, 94 S.Ct. 1734, 40 L.Ed.2d 189 (1974).
The Early County amendment is not unconstitutional under the equal protection or due process clauses of the fourteenth amendment.
3. The trial court also ruled that even if the amendment is constitutional, Great Northern is not entitled to an exemption because the amendment gives the board the discretion to allow the exemption or not. The trial court based this ruling on the fact that the amendment provides the installation "May . . . be exempt . . ." (Emphasis supplied.) We disagree with that interpretation for three reasons. First a review of the legislative history of the amendment persuades us that the word "may" appears in the amendment at issue because this amendment tracks the language of a similar constitutional amendment...
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