Request By:
Mr. James S. Secrest
Allen County Attorney
Box 35
Scottsville, Kentucky 42164
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your question relates to the 2% discount on 1979 taxes. Specifically you ask whether or not the 2% discount can be legally made effective for a period of 30 days from the date the tax bills are mailed.
Under the express terms of KRS 134.020, all state, county, and district taxes, generally, are due and payable on September 15 following the assessment. And any taxpayer who pays his state, county, or district taxes by November 1, after they become due in any year shall be entitled to a two per cent (2%) discount thereon.
In your situation, the 1979 assessment was not certified to the county clerk and county judge/executive until October 1, 1979, and it now appears that it will be late October or early November before the tax bills will be mailed to the taxpayers.
The obvious intent of the discount provision is to encourage the prompt and timely payment of taxes to the tax collector. Here, because of a late certification of the assessment, the normal tax collection procedure and schedule of payment within the statutory time frame has been disturbed through no fault of the taxpayer.
If the public policy expressed in KRS 134.020 as to the 2% discount is to be fairly applied in your situation, it can only be accomplished by allowing the affected taxpayers a reasonable period to pay their tax bills after the bills are mailed. A reasonable period would be 30 days from the date of mailing the tax bills. Since it would be impracticable to base the 30 day period from the date of individual receipt of the tax bill, the pragmatic approach would be to base it on 30 days from the date of the sheriff's mailing of the tax bill. The post office stamp would be clear documentary evidence of the mailing, generally.
OAG 74-779 invokes this equitable view, but it concludes that the 30 day period should begin with the date of receipt of the tax bill. Actually the "date of receipt" was borrowed from the fact that in 1966 Governor Breathitt by Executive Order provided that the taxpayer shall have 30 days from date of receipt of his tax bill to pay the tax due, with the 2% discount provided in KRS 134.020. In 1966, as a result of the case dealing with 100% fair cash value as relates to assessments [see Russman v. Luckett, Ky., 391 S.W.2d 694 (1965)] and the 1965 Rollback legislation, a delay in the issuance of tax bills in many counties was occasioned. Thus Governor Breathitt, pursuant to KRS Ch. 134, issued his orders setting forward the tax collection timetable.
The court recognized and approved, in Department of Revenue v. Miller, 303 Ky. 822, 199 S.W.2d 622 (1947), the rule of statutory construction that the literal language contained in some parts of a statute in apparent conflict with the general scheme should surrender to the general purpose and intent of the legislature as gathered from all parts of the statute.
It is our opinion that, under these extraordinary circumstances wherein the tax collection timetable has been substantially delayed and set forward, through no fault of the taxpayers, the sheriff should allow the 2% discount on 1979 taxes for a period of 30 days from the date the tax bills are mailed. This result would accomplish these objectives: (1) the basic legislative purpose underlying the discount would be subserved; (2) equity would be extended to the taxpayers; and (3) the basic tax collection procedure would in no way be disturbed or dislocated.
OAG 74-779 is modified accordingly.