Request By:
Mr. Reed E. Watts
Spencer County High School
Box 497
Taylorsville, Kentucky 40071
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General, By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of March 26 in which you present several questions concerning the city automobile license tax. Your questions are as follows:
"1. Is this tax legal on teachers and not for students who drive automobiles to school?
"2. The legality of the vote by the Town Board to remove all parking meters and the $5 fee be raised to $10 and levied only on those persons who originally paid the $5."
In order to specifically answer your initial question concerning the validity of the license tax being imposed on teachers and not on students, we would have to have a copy of the city ordinance. However, we will point out when a city levies a license tax on automobiles, it must be uniform and nondiscriminatory and, thus, must apply to every person operating an automobile within the city.
It is well settled in this state that every city has the power to levy a license fee on resident automobiles as well as nonresident automobiles that are operated daily within the city. Such authority is based on the ground that the license is one imposed under the city police power for the use and upkeep of city streets. See Commonwealth v. Kelly, 229 Ky. 722, 17 S.W.2d 1017 (1929); and Johnson v. City of Paducah, 285 Ky. 294, 147 S.W.2d 721 (1941). In this latter case the court held that the city's automobile tax of $5 was valid since it was imposed on all persons operating vehicles within the city limits and was therefore applicable to all persons residing outside of the corporate limits who operated a motor vehicle upon the streets of the city. This would, for example, include non-resident students who drive their automobiles to school on a daily basis.
In response to your second question, the city has complete control of its streets with the right to install parking meters along the various streets of the city. See City of Falmouth v. Pendleton County Court, 308 Ky. 526, 215 S.W.2d 101 (1948); and City of Louisville v. Louisville Automobile Association, 290 Ky. 241, 160 S.W.2d 663 (1942). The city also has the right to remove parking meters from any street or any portion of a street within the city under the same authority as mentioned above. The fact that the city has removed all parking meters and raised the automobile license tax from $5 to $10 is legally unrelated. Therefore, such action would be valid in our opinion.