Court makes inspiring ruling when it comes to government paying taxes

Taxes and death once were called the only things that are inevitable.

Now a court has ruled that even for governments, taxes aren’t something that can be avoided.

The ruling comes out of Wyoming, where the Cowboy State Daily reported on a ruing from the state Supreme Court that the state owes Uinta County more than $8,000 property taxes for a 3.3-acre parcel of state land there.

The taxes were triggered because the state makes a profit off the land, leasing it to a truck stop company and that’s considered a non-governmental use

So pay up, the court ordered the state.

The fight is over the Pilot Travel Center in Evanston, which is on state land but is a commercial enterprise.

The county assessor determined $8,160 taxes were due and billed the state, which argued it shouldn’t be told to pay taxes.

The land, managed by the state Board of Land Commissions, is assigned to be used to raise funding for the state hospital.

“Since 1999, the state has leased that land to Pilot Corp., which operates a truck stop there. The Uinta County assessor didn’t try taxing the land until 2021. The state grudgingly paid that tax bill, having missed its window to challenge. But when Uinta County Assessor Lori Perkins again taxed the state in 2022, the state challenged the $8,160 bill for that year by going to the County Board of Equalization, which is a tax-reviewing iteration of the board of county commissioners,” the report said.

The board sided with the state, the Board of Equalization sided with the assessor, the district court did too.

Then came the state Supreme Court’s decision, which said the state will pay up.

The state claimed its “fiduciary duty” to the hospitals means it is exempt.

But the county said a truck stop isn’t a “governmental purpose.”

“The Wyoming Constitution exempts government property from taxation based on how that property is used, not based on the governmental entity that owns or manages it,” the court said.