Virginia Supreme Court rules AGAINST N. VA tax authority

[Gopher Broke]

For Immediate Release Feb 29, 2008

For Further Information, Contact:

Peter J. Sepp, Natasha Altamirano, (703) 683-5700

Plaintiff Hails Court's Ruling against N. Va. Tax Authority; Predicts "Major Benefit" for Other States' Taxpayers

(Alexandria, VA) -- Virginia taxpayers scored a huge victory today when the Commonwealth's highest court sent an unmistakable message that the General Assembly may not delegate its taxing power to non-elected bodies such as the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority. Kristina Rasmussen, a plaintiff in Robert G. Marshall, et al. v. Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, et al. and Director of Government Affairs for the 362,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU) provided the following reaction:

"Today's Virginia Supreme Court decision marks a well-deserved victory for the Commonwealth's taxpayers. America is founded on the principle of no taxation without representation, and Virginia's Constitution allows the allocation of taxing powers only to directly elected legislative bodies and units of government. The law we challenged in this case (HB 3202) bestowed the ability to tax upon two bureaucratically structured regional authorities in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. Simply put, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) was not an elected entity. Even so, NVTA tried to levy $300 million in new taxes on local residents, and began collecting taxes at the start of 2008.

This ruling puts a halt to the insidious practice of subjecting the electorate to higher taxes at the hands of people they never had a chance to vote for (or against) at the polls. The decision also sends a strong message to the Virginia General Assembly that it can't wantonly disregard the rights of taxpayers in attempts to find politically expedient revenue sources. This case wasn't decided on a technicality, and the Court's unanimous decision stands as a serious rebuke to lawmakers. This need not have happened if elected officials had actually read the Constitution they swore to uphold before passing HB 3202. Equally important, the decision provides a clear warning to over-reaching legislatures in other states.

The homeowners, small business owners, motorists, and taxpayers of Northern Virginia look forward to having the 'null and void' taxes levied by the NVTA refunded to them."

NTU is a nonpartisan, nonprofit citizen organization founded in 1969 to work for lower taxes, smaller government, and economic freedom. The group has over 9,000 members in Virginia. Note: For more on NTU's efforts to end unlawful taxation, visit www.ntu.org.

-30-

[Gopher Broke]

Sometime the courts do the RIGHT thing.......

[rabscuttle385]

As a Northern Virginian, all I can say is...hurrah!

[pgkdan]

Well I’ll be damned! Take that Governor Kaine and you lilly livered RINO Senators and Delegates! I live in VA Beach and will celebrate the death of the Hampton Roads Regional Transportation Commission. Or at least their ability to raise taxes and levy fees and tolls!

[Moose4]

Exactly. If the folks up think they need to pay higher taxes for infrastructure improvements (which, in fairness, they desperately need), then let the politicians try to sell them on it. And maybe, just maybe, the politicians might find that they have no choice but to CUT THEIR WASTEFUL PORK SPENDING and shift their money to more important things like roads.

}:-)4

[khnyny]

Bob Marshall is actually the hero in all of this.

http://www.bvbl.net/index.php/2008/02/29/bob-marshall-wins-hb-3202-lawsuit/

[goldstategop]

The government cannot delegate its taxing authority. It may delegate the means of collecting taxes to another body but it cannot relinquish the power to tax.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[khnyny]

BTW, Bob Marshall is running for the Senate.

[Old Professer]

Now the legislature will raise the sales tax to get the money to give back to the taxpayers who “won.”

[BubbaBasher]

I live in VA Beach and will celebrate the death of the Hampton Roads Regional Transportation Commission.

Amen to that brother. Unelected people with the power to levy taxes without accountability should never have been initiated.

[petro45acp]

“As a Northern Virginian, all I can say is...hurrah!”

HERE HERE!!!

Now if we can just get those ELECTED beureau-critters to see the sense of letting folks keep the $$ they earn....a nice dream.

[Gopher Broke]

BOB MARSHALL WINS MAJOR VIRGINIA SUPREME COURT CASE ON TAX ISSUE

Del. Bob Marshall (Republican, Manassas), candidate for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, today [Friday, Feb. 29] hailed a Virginia Supreme Court decision declaring a 2007 state law unconstitutional because it granted taxing power to unelected regional transportation authorities.

“This is a great victory for VirginiaÂ’s taxpayers, for the Old DominionÂ’s representative government, and for the hallowed principle established at great sacrifice by our Founding Fathers of no taxation without representation,” Marshall, a lead plaintiff in the case against the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, said.

During debate last year, Marshall contended that the statute was unconstitutional, the only member of the House of Delegates to do so. The General Assembly, after nearly four months of consideration, approved the legislation last April 4 – by the House of Delegates, 85-14, and by the state Senate, 29-10. Gov. Kaine signed the bill into law last April 11.

Marshall took the fight to court, and today the Supreme Court agreed with him, overturning a lower-court ruling by Judge Benjamin N. A. Kendrick of the Arlington County Circuit Court.

The state Supreme Court, in its 23-page opinion written by Justice S. Bernard Goodwyn and summarized on its website, held that provisions of the 2007 statute “are unconstitutional due to their delegation of the General Assembly’s power of taxation to a political subdivision that is not a county, city, town, or regional government and that is not an elected body.”

“Although the Constitution does not explicitly prohibit it,” according to the court’s opinion summary, “such delegation is prohibited by necessary implication based on the language of certain Constitutional provisions.”

The Supreme Court ruled that taxes and fee already imposed by NTVA “are null and void” and struck portions of the statute allowing NTVA to impose them.

Marshall for Senate, Inc., Post Office Box 458, Manassas, Virginia 20108

http://www.bobmarshall2008.com

[rabscuttle385]

Now if we can just get those ELECTED beureau-critters to see the sense of letting folks keep the $$ they earn....a nice dream.

It's a dream that can be made real, so long as citizens vote for a government that will let them keep what they earn.

[wintertime]

ping

[lowbridge]

bump

[Lancey Howard]

Now the legislature will raise the sales tax to get the money to give back to the taxpayers who “won.”

And the taxpayers will - - if they have an IQ surpassing room temperature - - replace those legislators who voted to raise the sales tax. It's Virginia, though, and for some reason I am not counting on that.

[Old Professer]

I see supreme court decisions in the same way I see a guy going to the mechanic to find out why his car isn’t working right; the mechanic tells the guy that somebody has tried to repair the problem the wrong way and then tells the guy that he needs to put new wires and plugs in, have the fuel system flushed and use a higher grade fuel.

So our hapless would-be mechanic hangs his head, says I never thought to do that and jumps back in his jalopy to go straight to the local all-you-can-buy auto parts store and picks up the wires, plugs, solvent and a cheap set of tools and goes home and makes it run worse.

[steve-b]

Yep. The problem with the VA road system is that downstate policians skim off the money raised in the economic centers of the state (NoVA, and to a lesser extent Hampton Roads) and use it to pave cow paths in their districts.