OFFICE OF ‘YE3 ATTGBNEYGEX~RAL OF TJ3XAS
AUSTIN
Gerald C. Xann
Attorney General
Honorable Weaver Moore, Chairman
committee on State Affaira
The Senate
Auatln, Texas
Dear Sir:
0FiniOI.l No. o-3286
herConstltutlonality of Senate
IX11 X0. iub ‘~Xxemp’cYngpup-
erty or Delta Kappa Gamma
Society rmm taxation)
You asked the opinion or this department as to
the oonetitutionalltp of Senate Bill No, LO8, pending be-
fore your Comnlttee of the Forty-seventh Legislature. The
Ioaption of this Bill, whloh, for the purposes ot thie
opinion, will auffiolently indioate the nature thereof,
is a8 r0ih7et
ua BIIL
M BE ENTITLED
AN ACT exempting iron all City, County,
and State ad valorem and oocupatlon
taxes, offioe or headquarter8 build-
ings, and lots purchased for the
erection of offloe or headquarters
buildings, in the State of T xas,
propertx owned by the Delta happa
~l~umeSooistp; providing a saving
; and deolaring an energenoy.”
Artiole VIII, Seotion 2, of our Constitution, pro-
vides In part as follows:
n The Legislature may, by general laws,
exempt’fAA taxation pub110 property used for
public purposes; aotual places 0r reliQioua wor-
ship, also any property owned by a ohuroh or by
a strkc:ly religious aooisty for the exolueive
uee as a dwelling plaoe for the ministry oi suoh
ohuroh or religious soolety, and which yields
Honorable Waver Moors, Page 2
no revenur whatever to suoh ohuroh or religious
soolotyi provided that ruoh exemption shall not
extend to more property than Is reasonably neo-
esrary for a dwelling place and ln no event to
more than one aore of land1 plaors of burial
not held for private or oorporate profit; sll
buildings urod rxoluslvely and owned by persons
or aasooiatlons of persons for sohool purposes
and the neossrary furniture of all rohoole and
property used oxolusively and reasonably nroes-
sary In oonduotlng any awooiatlon engaged in
promoting the religious, eduoationsl and phyai-
oal development of boys, girls, young men or
young women operating under a state or national
organization of like oharaoter; also the endow-
ment funds of such institutions of learning and
religion not used with a view to profit; and
when the same are invested In bonds or mortgages,
or in land or other property which has been and
shall hereafter be bought in by euoh’institu-
tions or foreclosure sales made to satlery or
proteot such bonds or mortgages, that such ex-
emptions of suoh land ald property shall continue
only for two years after the purohase of ths
same at such sale by suoh institutions and no
longer, snd Institutions of purely publio ohar-
lty; and all laws exempting .property from taxa-
tion other than the property above meutloned
shall be. null and void. *
It is to be observed that the authority is oon-
ferred upon the Logirlature to exempt property from taxa-
tion only with respeot to property of the character and
devoted to the purposes expliolty mentioned in Artiole
VIII, Section 2, of the Constitution, and, by express pro-
vision of the Constitution, such exemptions may be con-
ferred only by general laws. The Act which you present
for our oonsideration sinD$Les out a particular organiza-
tion by name, to-wit, the Delta Kappa Canma Sooiety, and
attempts to confer upon its property an exemption rr0m taxa-
tion. It requires no oitation af authority to establish
the proposition that a law which singles out a Tartlcular
organization or person by name is a special law, not a
general law. For this reason, you are advised that senate
Bill No. 108 violates the grovlsions of Article VIII,
Section 2, of our Constitution.
.
Honorablr Wsaver Moore, Page S
This opinion Is not to be oonatrusd as an ex-
pression by thlr department that organizations of thb
oharaoter, generally, of the Delta Kappa GammaSoolety
may be, by general law, exempt from taxation under the
provisions of Artlole VIII, Seotlon 2 ot the Constitution.
By reason oi the dirporltion herelnsbove made of Senate
Bill No. 108, we find it unneoeesary to express an opln-
Ion at this time upon the question of the authority of .
the Legislature to exempt from taxation the property of
organizations of the type of Delta Kappa Gamma, by general
law.
Yours very truly
A!ll’ORNEYGFXEXULOF TEXAS
By /s/ R. W. Fairchild
3. W. Falrohild
Assistant
RWF:I&
‘APPROVEDMAR 5, 1941
/a/ Gerald C. Mann
ATTCRWBY
GZ?ERALOF TEXAS
APF’ROVXD
OPRKtOHCObUITl’EEBY B. C. B. CHAIRUN