Williams v. City of Richmond

• Decision Date: 21 April 1941
• Docket Number: Record No. 2352.
• Citation: 177 Va. 477
• Parties: B. F. WILLIAMS AND OTHERS v. CITY OF RICHMOND.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 477

177 Va. 477

B. F. WILLIAMS AND OTHERS v. CITY OF RICHMOND.

Record No. 2352.

Supreme Court of Virginia, Richmond.

April 21, 1941.

Present, All the Justices.

1. LICENSES — Power of Municipalities — City of Richmond May Require License Taxes. — Under sections 61 and 62 of its charter, the city of Richmond has the express power to require a license tax of the operators of any business conducted in the city if such requirement does not contravene the Federal and State Constitutions.

2. LICENSES — In General — May Be Imposed as Police Regulation or Revenue Measure. — License taxes may be imposed as a police regulation or as purely a revenue measure.

3. LICENSES — Power of Municipalities — Must Be Granted by Charter — Ordinance Passed in Pursuance of Charter on Same Basis as Statute. — A taxing ordinance stands on the same basis as a taxing statute. The authority of a city to impose a license tax on business depends solely upon its charter and the test is whether the charter contains the grant of power sought to be exercised, and if the charter does contain such grant, an ordinance passed in pursuance thereof occupies the same plane with an act of the Legislature.

4. TAXATION — Construction of Tax Laws — Strictly Construed. — Tax laws are always to be construed liberally in favor of the taxpayer and they are not to be extended by implication. If there is a substantial doubt it must be resolved in favor of the taxpayer.

5. TAXATION — Strict Construction — Unaffected by Tax Code, ¶ 2, and Code, ¶ 5, cl. 15. — The general rules of construction to the effect that taxing statutes must be construed liberally in favor of the taxpayer when they are doubtful or ambiguous are not affected by the rules of construction expressed in section 2 of the Tax Code and section 5, clause 15, of the Code of 1936.

6. TAXATION — Requisites of Statutes — Certainty. — One of the prime requisites of any statute is certainty, and this is especially true of a taxing statute.

7. STATUTES — Requisites — Certainty — Statute Inoperative If So Vague as to Convey No Definite Meaning. — If the terms in which a statute is couched be so vague as to convey no definite meaning to those whose duty it is to execute it ministerially or judicially, it is necessarily inoperative.

8. LICENSES — Ordinances — Certainty — Dragnet Section Cannot Leave Imposition of Tax to Improper Authority — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, a petition for relief from erroneous assessments of license taxes and penalties, a tax was imposed by the city of Richmond upon all persons conducting dental laboratories in the city. There was no provision of the Tax Code of the city applying specifically to the business and the tax was assessed by the commissioner of revenue under section 166 of the Tax Code of the city. This section provides that "Any person, firm, association, partnership or corporation engaged in any business, occupation or profession in the city of Richmond for which no specific license tax is levied in this chapter shall pay a license tax of $50.00 per annum. Not prorated."

Held: That section 166 of the city Tax Code was uncertain and there was no provision for making it certain by any proper authority, since the imposition of a license tax on any unnamed business rested solely in the hands of the commissioner of revenue.

9. TAXATION — Subject of Tax — Must Be Determinable from Statute or Ordinance. — The subject of a tax must be determinable from the statute or ordinance and must rest upon the judgment of the legislative body; not upon the whims of a ministerial officer.

10. TAXATION — Construction of Tax Laws — Legislative Intent Determined from Language. — The intent of a legislative body enacting a tax law must be found in the language used.

11. LICENSES — Ordinances — Subject of Tax — Intent of Council Must Be Expressed — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, a petition for relief from erroneous assessments of license taxes and penalties, a tax was imposed by the city of Richmond upon all persons conducting dental laboratories in the city. There was no provision of the Tax Code of the city applying specifically to the business and the tax was assessed by the commissioner of revenue under section 166 of the Tax Code of the city. This section provides that "Any person, firm, association, partnership or corporation engaged in any business, occupation or profession in the city of Richmond for which no specific license tax is levied in this chapter shall pay a license tax of $50.00 per annum. Not prorated."

Held: That the city council in enacting section 166 of the city Tax Code expressed no intent to lay a tax on dental laboratories, and such intent could not be presumed, because the council had never exercised its judgment under section 166 of the city Tax Code, or expressed any purpose to tax petitioners.

12. ORDINANCES — Validity — Test What May Be Done. — The test of the validity of an ordinance is not what has been done but rather what may be done under its provisions.

13. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW — Due Process under Federal Constitution — Definition. — The provision of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," when applied to substantive rights, is interpreted to mean that the government is without right to deprive a person of life, liberty or property by an act that has no reasonable relation to any proper governmental purpose, or which is so far beyond the necessity of the case as to be an arbitrary exercise of governmental power.

14. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW — Personal Liberty and Security — Meaning of Liberty. — Liberty, as used in a constitutional sense, means not merely the right to go where one chooses, but to do such acts as he may judge best for his interest, not inconsistent with the equal rights of others; that is, to follow such pursuits as may be best adapted to his faculties, and which will give him the highest enjoyment.

15. TAXATION — Constitutionality — Due Process — Tax So Burdensome as to Destroy Right to Perform Act or Use Property. — When a legislative body having power to tax a certain subject matter actually imposes such a burdensome tax as effectually to destroy the right to perform the act or to use the property subject to the tax, the validity of the enactment depends upon the nature and character of the right destroyed. If so great an abuse is manifested as to destroy natural and fundamental rights which no free government could consistently violate, it is the duty of the judiciary to hold such an act unconstitutional.

16. LICENSES — Validity — Amount Must Be Just and Reasonable. — Except as to those occupations or privileges in respect to which a restrictive or prohibitive fee or tax may be imposed, a license fee or tax, whether under the police power or under the taxing power, can legally be imposed only in such amount as, under the circumstances, is just and reasonable.

17. LICENSES — Due Process — Classification Must Be Reasonable — Dragnet Section of City Ordinance Cannot Tax All Classes Alike. — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, a petition for relief from erroneous assessments of license taxes and penalties, a tax was imposed by the city of Richmond upon all persons conducting dental laboratories in the city. There was no provision of the Tax Code of the city applying specifically to the business and the tax was assessed by the commissioner of revenue under section 166 of the Tax Code of the city. This section provides that "Any person, firm, association, partnership or corporation engaged in any business, occupation or profession in the city of Richmond for which no specific license tax is levied in this chapter shall pay a license tax of $50.00 per annum. Not prorated." Petitioners contended that section 166 of the Tax Code of the city amounted to an arbitrary and unreasonable classification and contravened the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and Article 1, section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia.

Held: That since, under a strict enforcement of section 166 of the Tax Code, the street bootblack, the domestic servant, the sales girl, the insurance and railroad executives, the minister, the teacher, the music teacher, the movie actress, and the owner of a dental laboratory are all placed in one class and all may be required to obtain a license and pay a flat tax, thus dealing a death blow to certain modest callings, such section is inimical to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution and to Article 1, section 1, of the State Constitution.

18. TAXATION — Municipal Corporations — Power Fundamental to City Government. — The power of taxation is fundamental to the government of cities.

19. TAXATION — Constitutionality — Equal Protection Requires Only Reasonable Classification. — The Constitution does not compel the adoption of an ironclad rule of equal taxation, nor prevent differences in taxation. It does not prevent the exercise of discretion in the selection of subjects or their reasonable classification. A wide discretion is allowed the legislative power in making classifications of trades and businesses which may be made subject to a license tax. If the classification is neither capricious nor arbitrary and rests upon some reasonable consideration of differences it is usually inoffensive to the equal protection provision of the Constitution.

20. TAXATION — Constitutionality — Classification Cannot Be Arbitrary or Capricious. — A classification of subjects for taxation will not be sustained where it is arbitrary or capricious and rests on no substantial or reasonable basis.

21. TAXATION — Constitutionality — Classification of Subjects — Dragnet Section of City Ordinance Cannot Classify All Alike — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, a petition for relief from erroneous assessments of license taxes and...