Show Utah court decision finds Law is Affects leased land in Duchesne The Utah Supreme Court Decision relating to the appeal of the Thiokol Chemical corporation pursuant to recovering taxes paid to Box Elder County has a definite effect on Duchesne County tax- j DUCHESNE County Assessor Lawrence E Luck says it is felt that this decision is of interest to all people of Duchesne as it upholds the constitutionality of the Utah privilege use tax statute In this the lessees of Indian-owned property for agricultural purpose are chiefly affected Assessor Luck decision should remove any question as to the legality of the privilege use as well as to point out the necessity for levying this tax upon all subject properties within Duchesne AT THE present the Duchesne County Assessor's office has some leases on Included in this classification are six special use permits on the National used by dude State equity properties bought by individuals from the on which they are charged taxes proportionately to their equity in the and some state leased Total acreage in these categories are approximately the assessor A civil filed In the district court at by three Duchesne County earlier this sought to test the and alleged discriminatory 1 factor of the privilege use tax assessment for 1962 and 1963 in Duchesne County JUDGMENTS have been fU- I ed in the county clerk's office on all those persons assessed this tax in the county who failed to pay the The Utah State Tax Commission entered the suit as a party defendant along with Le-land Duchesne County Treasurer Loch made the following are endeavoring to equally assess all property classified as being in Duchesne that property used for or for making a profit which is covered by This does not include open range or grazing lands as- the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest where the user does not have exclusive rights or possession This includes property used under terms of j being used somewhat by the have been numerous inquiries about how this law affects various properties Duchesne County It at any time we can help get the answer to any of the questions in the assessor's will be happy to give our I am grateful to the people of Duchesne County for the cooperation I have had thus far during my period of work as Duchesne County IN THIS Utah Court Decision No all four justices concurred in the decision F. Henri chief Roger I. E R. and Lester A. from this de-i-See USE page 10 Use Tax from Page sion pinpoint the issue will be noted that in this attempt to close gaps In the tax structure by placing a tax upon the privilege of possessing and using a business for profit and property which is otherwise no exception whatsoever is This being a later enactment the Utah bakes precedence over the prior existing insofar as they are It clearly and unequivocally applies the use tax to all property exempt for any reason This includes property heretofore exempt by If that property is used in a business for If so as it should the statute is in no way but uniformly taxes the privilege of using all property within its whether it belongs to the United the State of or any other tax-exempt The fact that in some instances it has not been properly so does not alter its nor does it change the fact that it should be so We recognize the principle that a statute when properly applies would be fair and consistent in may nevertheless be applied in such a discriminatory manner as to violate constitutional guarantees of equal protection of the laws and in which case the relief should be granted to one aggrieved by such discriminatory before this result is it must be shown that there is an intentional and systematic violation of those constitutional or some designed effort to violate to the injury of the But there is no basis upon which such a conclusion could fairly be drawn here in this case Chemical Corp IN THE first was a new statute which had been in effect for only one tax year prior to the year with which we are So the assessor apparently had not had much time to become sufficiently advised of the effect of this statute and to put it into full It is understandable that due to the inconsistency between the wording of this new statute and the old which expressly exempted state-owned the assessor proceeded to apply the new statute to exempt property which it was clearly such as that owned by the Federal Govern j and continued to exempt state-owned property as had been done under since at least prior to having a legal opinion or a court adjudication on the matter The fact that the Box Elder County assessor followed this even though it is t hat there were properties in the belonging to the state which were left under that does not demonstrate a disposition to intentionally or designedly discriminate against this taxpayer f Thiokol Chemical On the other it is evident that whatever failure of and uniform application of the statute there stemmed from lack of and or misunderstanding of the effect of this new A MERELY mistaken or inadvertent failure to properly the law even if it results in does not provide a basis for recovery a taxpayer because of violation of his constitutional It would be a doctrine hazardous indeed to the taxing process and to the maintenance of government to rule that if the assessor has made mistakes in taxing a complaining taxpayer could escape The result would be that the law could not be applied to anyone until it was correctly applied to It requires very little imagination to see that this would not non-compliance with the Even though may be difficult or impossible to achieve the of is that there be and equality in and that is the objective to be constantly the fact that this ideal is not reached should not be permitted to discourage attempts of taxing officials from bringing it nor to defeat the legislative pur-pose Where some taxpayers are not being taxed in accordance with the the proper way to rectify the erroneous application to others a I s WE HAVE failed to find in this record any justification for concluding that was intentionally misapplied in such manner as to be discriminatory against or even that there was any to its right to uniform which re- Bulted in discrimination that would provide a basis for relief from the tax Imposed by that The trial court's holding that the statute is constitutional is |