295 S.W. 1041 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1927
Reversing.
The city of Irvine by ordinance imposed a tax or license charge of $20 per annum on laundries and laundry agencies. Bergman conducts a hardware business in that city, and, in connection with that business, has for more than a quarter of a century conducted a laundry agency. He began this action by filing a petition against the city, its board of council, and its police judge, to enjoin them from enforcing this ordinance against him. He was successful, and the city has appealed.
Irvine is a city of the fourth class, and is authorized by section 3490, Kentucky Statutes, to license, tax, and regulate any trade, occupation, or profession. This ordinance has been attacked as unreasonable, excessive, oppressive, confiscatory, and discriminative. We do not so regard it. We have never hesitated to declare a license fee or tax unlawful where the governing authorities abused their discretion and imposed a license tax that was prohibitive, unreasonable, oppressive, or discriminatory, nor have we hesitated to uphold a tax that was not so. Our position has often been stated, and is fully set out in these cases: Sallsbury v. Equitable Purchasing Co.,
Bergman established by evidence that his net profits from the conduct of this business for one year was $32.18, and insists that to impose on that small return a license tax of $20 would be oppressive, and in support of his position he cites the case of Louisville v. Pooley, supra. In that case the license tax was $1,000 for loaning money on chattels, and a similar sum for loaning money on salaries. The average net earnings of Pooley from both these sources was $2,200, and to deduct from this $1,000 for each occupation, or $2,000 for the two, we held would be prohibitive, but there is a great difference between the imposition of a $1,000 license and one of $20. Great enough, in fact, to make this license tax valid, whereas the other was invalid. The reasonableness and validity of this ordinance is measured, not by its effect upon Bergman, but by what would be its effect on others engaged in the same occupation as he. In City of Louisville *807
v. Sagalowski,
"The test is whether the tax bears so heavily on a class, not isolated and exceptional individuals, as to prohibit the occupation — as to be confiscatory."
Measured by this rule, we cannot regard this license tax as invalid.
Some years ago the city of Irvine imposed a license tax of $50 upon the conduct of a laundry agency, which Bergman attacked just as he attacked this one, and the trial court in that case held the imposition of any license tax in excess of $10 per year would be prohibitive. Bergman has tendered $10 to the city, and insists that the matter of license tax on his business is res adjudicata, but in the case of City of Newport v. Com.,
The judgment is reversed.