STATE, EX REL., JACKSONVILLE GAS CO., ET AL.,
v.
J. M. LEE, COMPTROLLER
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Jacksonville Gas Co. and other gas and electric utilities sought mandamus to recover excise license taxes paid for the period July 1-August 24, 1931, claiming the tax statute was retroactively applied before its effective date. The Florida Supreme Court upheld the tax, finding that retroactive application was constitutionally permissible because the statute became law on June 26, 1931, before the July 1 tax period began.
The retroactive application of the excise license tax to receipts earned from July 1, 1931, onward was constitutionally valid because the statute became law before that date, and Florida's Constitution does not prohibit retroactive laws generally. The alternative writ of mandamus was quashed.
“As the relators were doing the business taxed during the period from July 1, 1931, to January 1, 1932, and as the statute became a law June 26, 1931, the State could legally and did actually require the excise license tax to be paid for the entire period from July 1, 1931, to January 1, 1932.”
Establishes the core holding that retroactive application is valid because the statute became law before the tax period began.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceChapter 15658, Acts of 1931, was enacted June 26, 1931, but did not become effective until August 24, 1931. The statute imposed an annual excise licen…
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In mandamus proceedings the relators seek to require the return to them of the amounts paid the State for excise license taxes for the period from July 1, 1931, to August 24, 1931, the contention being that as the statute did not take effect until August 24, 1931, the levy of the excise license tax prior to August 24, 1931, violates, organic. law.
The Attorney General for the State filed a motion to-quash the alternative writ of mandamus on grounds asserting the validity of the statute under which the tax was paid for the entire period from July 1, 1931, to January 1, 1932.
Chapter 15658, Acts of 1931, became a law June 26, 1931, though it was not effective till August 24, 1931. Sections 18 and 28, Article III, Constitution.
The statute requires an annual license tax of $1.50 upon each one hundred dollars of gross intra-State receipts for electricity and gas, the first report of receipts to be made to the State March 15, 1932, though the tax is to be paid upon receipts beginning with July 1, 1931, as shown by the reports to be filed March 15, 1932.
As' the relators were doing the business taxed during the period from July 1, 1931, to January 1, 1932, and as the statute became a law June 26, 1931, the State could legally and did actually require the excise license tax to be paid for the entire period from July 1, 1931, to January 1, 1932. 12 C. J. 1291; People v. Kelsey, 116 App. Div. 97, 101 N. Y. Supp. 902, affirmed in 188 N. Y. 541, 80 N. E. 1116.
The Constitution of this State does not forbid the enactment of retroactive laws, so decisions in States' whose Constitutions do forbid retroactive laws are not pertinent here. See Carroll v. Wright, 131 Ga. 728, 63 S. E. 260.
Section 4 of Chapter 15658 cannot legally be interpreted *111or applied so as to violate the organic provision forbidding ex post facto laws.
Alternative writ quashed.
Davis, C. J., and Whitfield, Ellis, Terrell, Brown and Buford, J. J., concur.