The Alaska Supreme Court has rejected a bid by a Lazy Mountain hay farmer -- and brother of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough mayor -- to stop paying local road taxes for roads he doesn't use.
Ray DeVilbiss contends he doesn't use the borough-maintained roads in his area -- he drives in and out on state-maintained North Wolverine Road -- yet pays $1,500 a year in taxes toward the local road-service area.
In 2011, DeVilbiss unsuccessfully petitioned the borough Assembly to remove his 110 acres from the service area it was annexed into in 1981. His brother Larry was elected that year to a largely ceremonial mayor position, though Ray DeVilbiss last year said his brother was no more helpful than any of the other bureaucrats involved.
Ray DeVilbiss sued the borough in 2012, claiming a 2007 state law allows the borough to let him out of the area and the taxes. He also argued local roads don't provide a general benefit but instead represent a "special service" to select homes or subdivisions.
The Supreme Court rejected the farmer's case in an opinion issued Friday. The court upheld a Palmer Superior Court decision rejecting that argument and ordering DeVilbiss to pay the borough $2,295 in legal fees.
Basically, the five-judge opinion states, the validity of a tax doesn't depend on whether a taxpayer gets a special benefit in return for paying it, as established by the U.S. Supreme Court and seconded by every state high court except New York's.
"Childless couples pay taxes that fund schools, incorporeal corporations pay taxes that fund hospitals, and RSA residents who exclusively use state-maintained roads pay taxes that fund road services elsewhere in their service area," the opinion states. "A tax bill is not a ledger to be balanced by the receipt of special benefits; it is 'a means of distributing the burden of government'."
An exemption for properties like DeVilbiss' was added to state law that allows boroughs to alter service areas with approval of the majority of residents, the judges wrote. But that doesn't mean exclusion is mandatory.