Texas Attorney General Opinion: WW-584 Page: 3 of 12
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Honorable Truett Latimer, page 3 (WW-584)
a program of research, education and promotion designed to
increase the production, consumption and quality of Texas
grown peanuts.
Does the exaction authorized by House Bill 174
constitute a tax?
A tax is not a voluntary payment or donation,
but an enforced contribution. 84 C.J.S. 32, Taxation,
Sec. 1. Although the peanut producer who is dissatisfied
with an annual assessment is authorized by House Bill 174 to
demand the return of his money, the fact remains that he
has been made by law to part with it involuntarily in the
first instance. Under this bill money may be taken, for
a time at least, without the consent of as many as one-
third (1/3) of the class subject to the exaction. The
farmer is deprived of the use of his money, but no pro-
vision is made to pay him interest. Further, he is put
to the trouble of having to make written demand for the
return of his money, and no provision is made as to when
the money must be returned to him following demand. The
fact that the farmer's money has been taken without his
consent and diverted to other uses for a time is not ex-
plained away by saying the condition may only be temporary.
The revenue derived from the exation authorized
by House Bill 174 does not enter the State Treasury. But
the case of Friedman v. American Surety Co. of New York,
137 Tex. 149, 151 S.W.2d 570 (1941) indicates that circul-
ation through the State Treasury is not a prerequisite of a
tax. In that case itias held that the "contributions" re-
quired by the Unemployment Act to be made by employers to pro-
vide compensation for certain employees during involuntary
unemployment are taxes, and that the statute is a tax statute,
even though the fund into which such contributions are made
never becomes a "State fund," that is, paid into the State
Treasury, but only a fund in the custody or trust of the
State Treasurer. In the words of the Court:
". . . The taxes are levied and col-
lected for such fund, and not for the State
in its sovereign capacity. .. ."
Under House Bill 174 money is to be collected
from a certainclass for a particular fund. It is not
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: WW-584, text, April 2, 1959; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth267196/m1/3/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.