The Briefing Room
General Category => National/Breaking News => SCOTUS News => Topic started by: libertybele on May 25, 2023, 04:13:20 pm
-
94-year-old grandmother gets big win at Supreme Court
The Supreme Court ruled in favor Thursday of a 94-year-old Minnesota grandmother who claimed that the state violated her constitutional rights when they seized her condo over an unpaid tax debt, then sold the property and kept all the sale proceeds — which were far above what she actually owed.
Geraldine Tyler owned a condo which Hennepin County seized as payment for approximately $15,000 in outstanding property taxes, penalties, interest and costs. The home was then sold for $40,000. Under the state's forfeiture laws, the county kept the surplus proceeds - in this case to the tune of $25,000.
Tyler argued that the government violated the Fifth Amendment's "Takings Clause" by confiscating property worth more than the debt owed by the owner. Lower courts ruled against her and dismissed her case, but the Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously sided with her arguments and held that she brought a valid claim under the Takings Clause.
"The taxpayer must render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, but no more," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court's opinion. ...........
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/94-year-old-grandmother-big-win-supreme-court
-
Link to the opinion itself: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-166_8n59.pdf
-
An outstanding precedent, and one that can provide relief to people all over the country.
-
Yes, this sets a precedent that the state can't keep all the $$ from the proceeds of a home sold for tax debts. I wondered what state this took place in so I looked up Hennepin county - it is in Minnesota. I wonder how much money MN has raked in over the years?
-
An outstanding precedent, and one that can provide relief to people all over the country.
:yowsa: :amen:
-
Yes, this sets a precedent that the state can't keep all the $$ from the proceeds of a home sold for tax debts. I wondered what state this took place in so I looked up Hennepin county - it is in Minnesota. I wonder how much money MN has raked in over the years?
If the excess is even one dollar it is too much. Likely, too, the tax debt (with interest and fees) is excessive as well, with lots of add-ons to make the debt harder to pay.
-
Reading through the case, it surprises me a little that the lower courts would have come to the conclusion that the plaintiff failed to state a cause of action.
Under the Minn. statute, once the taxes become delinquent and have been delinquent for a year, title to the property is vested in the state, and it is that absolute vesting of title to the entire property that appears to form the basis for the lower courts' conclusion that the plaintiff no longer had a cognizable interest in the property.
But that is simply moving the point in time at which the uncompensated taking occurs. It doesn't turn what is a taking into something that is not-a-taking.
-
If the excess is even one dollar it is too much. Likely, too, the tax debt (with interest and fees) is excessive as well, with lots of add-ons to make the debt harder to pay.
It was excessive in what I would take to be common parlance. According to the opinion, the debt amounted to $2,300 in unpaid property taxes, plus $13,000 in interest and penalties, which accrued over a five-year period, from 2010 to 2015.
-
... sounds like something the covetous Limousine Liberal Dems in the Taxachusetts legislature might want to have here ... for the children.
I know Mike Dukakis would have approved of absolute state seizure of property title for non-payment of taxes less than the value of the property.
(http://cdn.scragged.com/content/nonversioned/images/articles/Taxachusetts.jpg)