J. EDWIN LARSON, AS STATE TREASURER AND INSURANCE COMMISSIONER OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
v.
THE INDEPENDENT LIFE & ACCIDENT INSURANCE COMPANY, A CORPORATION, AND GULF LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, A CORPORATION
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The Florida Supreme Court upheld a declaratory judgment that Chapter 22671 of the 1945 Acts, imposing a premium receipts tax on insurance companies, should be interpreted prospectively rather than retroactively. The court rejected the State Treasurer's argument that the tax should apply to premiums for the full year 1945, including the period before the statute's effective date of May 23, 1945.
The statute should be interpreted prospectively, not retroactively. The premium receipts tax applies only to business conducted after the statute's effective date of May 23, 1945, and the tax payable on March 1, 1946, should not include premiums from January 1, 1945 to May 23, 1945. The statute's clear language does not evince any legislative intent to apply retroactively to domestic insurers.
“courts indulge the presumption that all acts of the legislature operate prospectively unless there is a clear or expressed intent that they have a retroactive effect”
Establishes the fundamental presumption against retroactive statutory application
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceChapter 22671 Acts of 1945 imposed a premium receipts tax on insurance companies. The appellees (Independent Life & Accident Insurance Company and Gul…
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Appellees filed suit for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief, the result depending on the interpretation of Chapter 22671 Acts of 1945, relating to taxes on insurance companies. A motion to dismiss was overruled, answer was filed and a motion to strike certain portions of the answer was sustained. Defendant declining to plead further, final decree was entered for the plaintiff and this appeal was prosecuted.
The trial court held in effect that the premium receipts tax imposed by Chapter 22671, is not a prospective tax, payable at the first of the year, but that it is a tax imposed for doing business the preceding calendar year, payable at the end of the year and that there is nothing in the wording of the act to show a legislative intent, as to domestic insurers, that the tax payable on March 1, 1946, should include in its computation the period from January 1, 1945 to May 23, 1945, the effective date of the act.
Appellant urges two questions to overthrow the finding and judgment of the lower court, but both turn on whether or not Chapter 22671 should be given a retroactive or a prospective interpretation.
Appellant contends that the conditions which the act was designed to remedy, the condition of the times, the history of the legislation and other circumstances relative to its passage, warrant a retroactive interpretation as to taxes or premiums for the year 1945.
It is academic to say that courts indulge the presumption that all acts of the legislature operate prospectively unless there is a clear or expressed intent that they have a retroactive effect. Acts which creat® new obligations and impose new penalties, have been more rigidly construed as being governed by this rule. If the retrospective interpretation has *625nothing more than implication to support it, it must be unequivocal and leave no room for doubt as to legislative intent.
We have read the act in question and we find nothing whatever in its terms that would warrant us in giving it a retroactive effect. Its terms are clear and comprehensive and no sufficient basis is revealed on which a different judgment from that appealed from could be reached. In this holding we do not overlook the circumstances that actuated it. It might appropriately be affirmed on authority of Lincoln National Life Ins. Co. v. Read 194 Okla. 542, 156 Pac. (2) 368; Jefferson Standard Ins. Co. v. King, 165 S.C. 219, 163 S.E. 652, and like cases.
Affirmed.
THOMAS, C.J., CHAPMAN and McNEILL, Associate Justice, concur.
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Citator
Cited By (16 total)
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Kayle Barrington Bates v. State, 750 So. 2d 6 (Fla. 1999)…character of past transactions carried on upon the faith of the then existing law.”); and any basis for retroactive application must be unequivocal and leave no doubt as to the legislative intent. See Larson v. Independent Life & Accident Ins. Co., 158 Fla. 623, 29 So. 2d 448 (1947); see also Broom, supra at 25 (“It is a general principle of our law that no statute shall be construed so as to have a retrospective operation, unless its language is such as plainly to require that construction”). In 1994, th…
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Senfeld v. The Bank of Nova Scotia Tr. Co. (cayman) Ltd., 450 So. 2d 1157 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984)…eclaration that a statute have retroactive effect, the statute will be deemed to operate prospectively only, Fleeman v. Case, 342 So. 2d 815 (Fla.1976); Thayer v. State, 335 So. 2d 815 (Fla.1976); Larson v. Independent Life & Accident Insurance Co., 158 Fla. 623, 29 So. 2d 448 (1947), and that even a clear expression of retroactivity will be ignored if the statute impairs vested rights, creates new obligations, or imposes [*1165] new penalties,12 Village of El Portal v. City of Miami Shores, 362 So. 2d 275…
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Trs. OF Tufts Coll. v. Triple R. Ranch, Inc., 275 So. 2d 521 (Fla. 1973)…ll v. Cone, 140 Fla. 1, 191 So. 50 (1939), Laney v. Board of Public Instruction for Orange County, 153 Fla. 728, 15 So. 2d 748 (1944), State ex rel. Bayless v. Lee, 156 Fla. 494, 23 So. 2d 575 (1945), Larson v. Independent Life & Acc. Insurance Co., 158 Fla. 623, 29 So. 2d 448 (1947), State ex rel. Riverside Bank v. Green, 101 So. 2d 805 (Fla.1958), Indemnity Insurance Co. of North America v. Brooks-Fisher Insulating Co., 140 So. 2d [*525] 613 (Fla.App.1962), Schonfield v. City of Coral Gables, 174 So. 2d 4…
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