Hawkins v. People's Finance & Thrift Co.

• Decision Date: 30 May 1929
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 399.
• Citation: 219 Ala. 558,122 So. 650
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court
• Parties: HAWKINS, TAX COLLECTOR, v. PEOPLE'S FINANCE & THRIFT CO.

122 So. 650

219 Ala. 558

HAWKINS, TAX COLLECTOR, v. PEOPLE'S FINANCE & THRIFT CO.

6 Div. 399.

Supreme Court of Alabama

May 30, 1929

Rehearing Denied June 13, 1929.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County; John Denson, Judge.

Action to recover taxes paid under protest by the People's Finance & Thrift Company against James F. Hawkins, as Tax Collector of Jefferson County. From a judgment for plaintiff defendant appeals. Reversed and rendered.

Horace C. Wilkinson, of Birmingham, for appellant.

R. B Evins, of Birmingham, for appellee.

GARDNER J.

Plaintiff as a domestic industrial loan corporation, duly and legally assessed its capital stock for the year commencing October 1, 1926, and on January 30, 1928, paid under protest the taxes arising from such assessment. This suit followed for a recovery of said taxes so paid, based upon the theory that, under the provisions of section 25 of the General Revenue Law approved July 22, 1927 (Gen. Acts 1927, p. 166), plaintiff was exempt from the assessment and payment of such tax, and that such exemption retrospectively affected the assessments which had been entered for the tax year beginning October 1, 1926.

The cause was tried before the court without a jury upon an agreed statement of facts, resulting in a judgment for the plaintiff, from which defendant has prosecuted this appeal.

The exemption contended for by plaintiff is in the nature of an exception or proviso embodied in said section 25 of the Revenue Law in the following language: "Provided, however, that the provisions of this Act, shall not apply to the shares of stock of domestic or foreign mortgage companies or corporations whose chief business is making loans on real estate, or purchasing mortgages and mortgage notes on real estate; nor shall this Act apply to the shares of domestic or foreign industrial loan companies or corporations, it being hereby expressly enacted that all shares of stock of such domestic and foreign mortgage companies or corporations and domestic and foreign industrial loan companies or corporations, shall be exempted from assessment and the payment of ad valorem taxes." This revenue law was approved July 22, 1927, and the taxes, for the recovery of which this suit was instituted, became due and payable on October 1st thereafter.

The pivotal question, therefore, here presented, is whether or not it was the legislative intent that the above-noted exemption should have application to assessments already established and as to which the taxes would become due in a short period of time.

It is the general rule of statutory construction that statutes are to be construed as having only a prospective operation, unless the purpose and intention of the Legislature to give them a retrospective effect is expressly declared or is necessarily implied from the language used. New England Mtg. Co. v. Board of Revenue, 81 Ala. 110, 1 So. 30; Barrington v. Barrington, 200 Ala. 315, 76 So. 81; 36 Cyc. pp. 1205, 1206. This rule has application to tax statutes (New England Mtg. Co. v. Board of Revenue, supra; 2 Cooley on Taxation, § 514), and is therefore properly to be applied to section 25 of the General Revenue Law.

But a reading of the section suffices, without reference to any rule of construction, to demonstrate the legislative intent that its provisions should operate prospectively. The exemption claimed is by way of a proviso to said section 25, and is to be construed in connection therewith. 36 Cyc. 1161, 1162. But the Legislature left no room for doubt as to intention for prospective operation only, as in one of the concluding sections of the General Revenue Law (section 80) it is expressly stated that "except as otherwise provided in this Act, all the provisions of this Act shall go into effect on the first day of October, 1927." As a part of the provisions of the act is section 25, which must therefore speak prospectively, and the exemption claimed is a part of said section, a proviso embodied therein, and should likewise be construed as speaking in the future and to become, with the other provisions of said section, effective as of October 1, 1927.

...