Pledger v. Featherlite Precast Corp.

823 S.W.2d 852, 308 Ark. 124, 1992 Ark. LEXIS 48
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedJanuary 27, 1992
Docket91-91
StatusPublished
Cited by54 cases

This text of 823 S.W.2d 852 (Pledger v. Featherlite Precast Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pledger v. Featherlite Precast Corp., 823 S.W.2d 852, 308 Ark. 124, 1992 Ark. LEXIS 48 (Ark. 1992).

Opinion

Robert H. Dudley, Justice.

Appellee Featherlite, a corporate taxpayer, and members of the class of taxpayers it attempts to represent, are producers of precast concrete components used in the construction of concrete structures such as bridges and parking decks. The components produced by taxpayer Feather-lite are made at its out-of-state plant according to the specifications of its customer. The components are then transported to the jobsite in Arkansas and assembled into a structure.

From May 1,1981, through December 31,1986, the period of the use tax audit, the taxpayer was at times a producer-vendor of the component parts, and at other times also subcontracted to assemble the structure. Depending upon its capacity, the taxpayer reported Arkansas use tax on either its vendor use tax permit or its consumer use tax permit. Regardless of which permit it used to report the tax, it calculated the tax due based upon the cost of raw materials used in making the components instead of the sales price of the components. In addition, it neither collected nor remitted tax on the delivery charges included on the bills to its customers for the concrete components.

After the tax audit was completed, the Revenue Division of the Department of Finance and Administration made a proposed use tax assessment and, in doing so, calculated the use tax based upon the sales price of the concrete components, giving credit for the use tax already reported on the cost of the raw materials. The proposed assessment also included use tax on the delivery charges billed to the customers on the taxpayer’s invoices. The taxpayer protested the proposed assessment and requested an administrative hearing. There the taxpayer contended that requiring producers of precast components to pay tax based upon the sales price of the components, rather than the cost of the raw materials used, placed precasters at a competitive disadvantage, since a general contractor that built the same type of structure would do so by pouring the concrete in place, without using precast components, but would be required to pay tax only on the cost of the raw materials used. The Administrative Law Judge held that precast concrete components are items of tangible personal property, and the correct basis for the tax is the sales price of the component, not the cost of the raw materials used in producing it, and sustained the assessment. The taxpayer paid the assessment under protest and filed its appeal in the Chancery Court of Pulaski County, asserting that the revenue division’s interpretation of the use tax statutes constituted an illegal exaction. It sought a refund of the $195,844.41 which it had paid under protest; sought an accounting of all taxpayers who might have been similarly taxed; sought refunds for all similarly situated taxpayers who, after the date of filing of this suit, might have been, or would be, taxed in the same manner as this taxpayer; sought to have declared illegal the Revenue Division’s interpretation of the use tax statutes and to enjoin the Revenue Division from so interpreting these statutes; and sought an attorney fee from the resulting common fund.

The Director and Treasurer answered and the parties entered into a stipulation of facts. The Chancellor certified the case as an illegal exaction class action. The parties submitted briefs on cross-motions for summary judgment. On December 20, 1990, the Chancellor wrote a two sentence letter to the parties stating that he found the taxpayer’s argument more convincing. On December 31, 1990, the Chancellor’s last day in office, he signed a detailed thirty-six page order which found for the taxpayer on every count. The attorneys for the Director and the Treasurer were apparently not given the opportunity to approve or disapprove the form of the precedent. We reverse on both the merits and on the procedure.

The appellant Director and Treasurer first argue that the Chancellor erred in holding that he had jurisdiction of this case under Article 16, Section 13, the illegal exaction provision, of the Constitution of the State of Arkansas.

The illegal exaction provision and the cases interpreting it encompass two (2) different types or kinds of exactions. One type involves the prevention of a misapplication of public funds or the recovery of funds wrongly paid to a public official. See, e.g., Brewer v. Hawkins, 242 Ark. 460, 408 S.W.2d 492 (1966). We have given this type of exaction an expansive interpretation because taxpayers are the equitable owners of all funds collected by a government and, in most of the cases, are liable to replenish the funds exhausted by a misapplication or wrongful payment. Under these conditions taxpayers are entitled to broad relief. See, e.g., Samples v. Grady, 207 Ark. 724, 182 S.W.2d 875 (1944). For convenience, we label this type of case a “public funds” exaction case.

The case now before us involves a wholly different type of exaction. It does not involve the “public fund” doctrine, and therefore, the same reasoning is not applicable to it. This exaction case involves a taxpayer who seeks to enjoin a government from taxing him. In this second kind of exaction case, which, for convenience, we label an “illegal tax” exaction case, the exaction itself must be alleged to be illegal before the chancery court has jurisdiction under the constitutional provision. It is true that we have many cases in which the collection of taxes has been enjoined under the illegal exaction provision, but all involve a tax that was itself illegal. See for example Greedup v. Franklin County, 30 Ark. 101 (1875), an attempt to collect a county levy in excess of the five mills allowed by the constitution; Lyman v. Howe, 64 Ark. 436, 42 S.W. 830 (1897), a tax based upon an assessment not made by the assessor; Ragan v. Venhaus, 289 Ark. 266, 711 S.W.2d 467 (1986) and Merwin v. Fussell, 93 Ark. 336, 124 S.W. 1021 (1910), attempts to collect taxes not properly voted by the people; McDaniel v. Texarkana Cooperage & Mfg. Co., 94 Ark. 235, 126 S.W. 727 (1910), a tax levied by a county having no jurisdiction over the property; City of Little Rock v. Cash, 277 Ark. 494, 644 S.W.2d 229 (1982) and Waters Pierce Oil Co. v. Little Rock, 39 Ark. 412 (1882), taxes which were not authorized by the city’s delegated power of taxation. However, we have always held that if the taxes complained of are not themselves illegal, a suit for illegal exaction will not lie. Schuman v. Ouachita County, 218 Ark. 46, 234 S.W.2d 42 (1950). In Taber v. Pledger, 302 Ark. 484, 489, 791 S.W.2d 361, 364 (1990), we wrote that “a suit to declare a tax statute unconstitutional, and therefore void” comes within the illegal exaction provision, while a suit “to determine whether the taxpayer’s transactions fall within an exemption created by statute” does not come within the section. More important, and precisely on point in this case, we have held that a flaw in the assessment or collection procedure, no matter how serious from the taxpayer’s point of view, does not make the exaction itself illegal. Schuman v. Ouachita, supra (citing Missouri Pacific Ry. Co. v. Fish, 181 Ark.

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Bluebook (online)
823 S.W.2d 852, 308 Ark. 124, 1992 Ark. LEXIS 48, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pledger-v-featherlite-precast-corp-ark-1992.