Texas Attorney General Opinion: WW-584 Page: 8 of 12
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Honorable Truett Latimer, page 8 (WW-584)
marketed. The effect of the bill is to place a tax on the
commercial production of peanuts, 'the sale of the crop
being a necessary incident to duch commercial production.
Louisiana State Department of Agriculture v. Sibille, 207
La. 877, 22 So. 2d 202 (1945). Consequently, the levy of
an occupation tax is authorized by the bill.
Section. 3 of Article VIII of the Constitution of
Texas provides in part as follows:
"Sec. 3. One-fourth of the revenue
derived from the State occupation taxes . .
shall be set apart annually for the benefit
of the public free schools; .. ."
House Bill 174 is, in our opinion, repugnant to
Section 3 of Article VII of the Texas Constitution by rea-
son of not setting apart annually one-fourth (i) of the
revenue derived from the occupation tax for the benefit of
the public free schools of Texas. All of the revenue de-
rived from this occupation tax, except five per cent (5%)
which goes to the Commissioner of Agriculture, is by House
Bill 174 diverted to the certified association in violation
of the Texas Constitution.
Section 1 of Article VIII of the Constitution of
Texas provides in. part as follows:
". . . persons engaged in mechanical and
agricultural pursuits shall never be required
to pay an occupation tax; . . .2"
The Constitution of the State of Louisiana simi-
larly forbids the levying of license taxes on persons
engaged in agricultural pursuits. La. Const. Art. X, Sec.
8. The Supreme Court of that State in Louisiana State De-
partment of Agriculture v. Sibille, supra, struck down the
Louisiana statute imposing a tax on all sweet potatoes
shipped in Louisiana in so far as the tax violated the
aforesaid constitutional provision by imposing a tax on
the farmer shipping or carrying his crop to market. The
Court stated:
"In the case of State v. Hayes, 143 La.
39, 78 So. 143, 144, which involved a provi-
sion of the 1913 Constitution identical with
that above quoted, it was stated:
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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/m1/8/: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.