Also known as: payments of taxes · tax payment · tax payments · paying taxes · taxes payment
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
2 senses
The discharge of real estate tax obligations levied against property to protect a mortgagee's security interest. Failure to make such payment can allow senior tax liens to attach.
The discharge of real estate tax obligations levied against property to satisfy a statutory requirement for acquiring title by adverse possession or prescription.
The discharge of real estate tax obligations levied against property to protect a mortgagee's security interest. Failure to make such payment can allow senior tax liens to attach.
The discharge of real estate tax obligations levied against property to satisfy a statutory requirement for acquiring title by adverse possession or prescription.
Owner of severed mineral rights fails to pay annual property taxes assessed against those interests for seven years. A surface owner who has paid the taxes petitions to declare the mineral rights lapsed under a state statute. The court grants the petition because the required tax payments were not made.
Each sense below has its own examples, sources, and questions.
Junior Mortgagee obtains appointment of a receiver for an office building owned by Mortgagor. The receiver collects rents and pays the current property taxes plus maintenance costs from those funds. When Senior Mortgagee later secures its own receiver, the junior receiver keeps the remaining balance for Junior Mortgagee's benefit because the taxes were already satisfied.
A new resident of State X applies for public assistance shortly after moving from State Y. State officials deny benefits citing the applicant's limited prior tax payments in State X. The court holds that recent arrival alone does not justify withholding aid when the applicant meets all other eligibility criteria.
Open the case page for the full write-up.
View caseA religious group refuses to pay a generally applicable sales tax on sacramental items, claiming the payment burdens free exercise. The court rejects the exemption because the tax is a neutral law of general applicability that does not target religious conduct.
Alfred Smith and Galen Black were members of the Native American Church employed at a private drug rehabilitation organization in Oregon. They ingested peyote for sacramental purposes during a church ceremony. Their employer fired them for this conduct, treating it as work-related misconduct. Smith and Black applied to the Employment Division of the Oregon Department of Human Resources for unemployment compensation benefits, but the Division denied the claims on the ground that the firings constituted misconduct. The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the denials, holding that they violated the respondents' free exercise rights under the First Amendment. The Oregon Supreme Court concluded that respondents were entitled to payment of unemployment benefits. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded for a determination whether Oregon law prohibited the sacramental use of peyote. On remand, the Oregon Supreme Court held that the statute made no exception for sacramental use and reaffirmed its conclusion that denying benefits violated the respondents' constitutional rights. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari a second time. Oregon law prohibits knowing or intentional possession of peyote, a Schedule I controlled substance, making it a Class B felony. The respondents' peyote use occurred at a Native American Church ceremony and formed the sole basis for their terminations and benefit denials.
A prison inmate challenges a state policy that permits religious groups to receive public funds for chaplain services. The court upholds the policy because it does not involve the coercive collection of taxes to support a particular faith in the manner forbidden at the founding.
In 2000 Congress enacted the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Petitioners are current and former inmates of institutions operated by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction who adhere to nonmainstream religions including the Satanist, Wicca, and Asatru religions and the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. They initially filed suit against Ohio prison officials asserting claims under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. After enactment of the Act petitioners amended their complaints to add claims under Section 3. The inmates complained that prison officials failed to accommodate their religious exercise in a variety of ways including denying access to religious literature, denying opportunities for group worship granted to adherents of mainstream religions, forbidding adherence to dress and appearance mandates, withholding religious ceremonial items, and failing to provide a chaplain trained in their faith. For purposes of the litigation respondents stipulated that petitioners are members of bona fide religions and sincere in their beliefs. Respondents moved to dismiss the statutory claims arguing that Section 3 violates the Establishment Clause. Pursuant to statute the United States intervened in the District Court to defend the constitutionality of the Act. The District Court denied the motion to dismiss. On interlocutory appeal the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the District Court determination. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict among Courts of Appeals on whether the institutionalized-persons provision of the Act is consistent with the Establishment Clause.
During an economic emergency a state court extends the redemption period on a defaulted mortgage but expressly requires the mortgagor to continue paying current property taxes to preserve the mortgagee's security. The mortgagor complies and the extension is upheld.
The Blaisdells executed a mortgage on their property in Minneapolis to the Home Building & Loan Association on August 1, 1928. The mortgage contained a valid power of sale by advertisement. After default, the mortgage was foreclosed and the property sold to the Association on May 2, 1932, for $3700.98. The period of redemption under the law then in effect was set to expire on May 2, 1933. On April 18, 1933, Minnesota enacted Chapter 339 of the Laws of 1933, known as the Mortgage Moratorium Law. The statute authorized district courts to extend the period of redemption from foreclosure sales for such additional time as the court deemed just and equitable, not beyond May 1, 1935, upon condition that the mortgagor pay a reasonable part of the income or rental value toward taxes, insurance, interest, and principal. The Blaisdells applied to the District Court of Hennepin County for an extension of the redemption period. The district court found that the reasonable rental value of the property was $40 per month and the present market value was $6000. It extended the redemption period to May 1, 1935, requiring the Blaisdells to pay $40 per month to the Association. The Supreme Court of Minnesota affirmed the order. The Home Building & Loan Association appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which reviewed the judgment sustaining the statute as applied to the preexisting mortgage.
3 common questions
Yes. When a mortgagor allows real estate taxes to become delinquent and senior tax liens attach, the mortgagee's security interest is impaired even without physical damage to the property. The mortgage itself may also expressly require timely tax payment, and breach of that covenant supports a waste claim.
Supporting sources
The receiver must first pay real estate taxes and reasonable maintenance expenses. Only after those obligations are satisfied may the receiver apply remaining rents to the junior obligation, and even then only until a senior receiver is appointed.
Supporting sources
No. Conditioning public assistance on prior tax contributions in the forum state violates equal protection when the classification penalizes the exercise of the right to travel. Recent arrivals who meet all other eligibility criteria cannot be denied benefits on that basis alone.
Supporting sources
In 1971 the Indiana Legislature enacted the Dormant Mineral Interests Act. The Act provided that any severed mineral interest unused for a period of twenty years would be extinguished and its ownership would revert to the then-current surface owner unless the mineral owner filed a statement of claim in the county recorder's office. The statute took effect on September 2, 1971, and included a two-year grace period allowing owners of already unused interests to preserve them by filing claims. A mineral interest was deemed used if minerals were produced, rents or royalties were paid, or taxes were paid on the interest. Owners could also preserve interests by filing statements of claim, and an exception allowed owners of ten or more interests in the same county who inadvertently omitted some to file a supplemental claim within sixty days of receiving notice. The first of the two consolidated cases concerned fractional mineral interests severed in 1942 and 1944 from a 132-acre tract in Gibson County, Indiana. Eleven appellants claimed ownership of those interests, and a twelfth appellant held oil and gas leases executed by the others in 1976 and 1977. The appellee owned the surface of the tract. The parties stipulated that the mineral interests had not been used for twenty years and no statement of claim had been filed within the grace period, so the interests lapsed on September 2, 1973. On April 28, 1977, the surface owner published and mailed notice of the lapse. The mineral owners then filed statements of claim, and the surface owner commenced an action seeking a declaratory judgment that the interests had been extinguished. In the second case the severed mineral estate was created on March 1, 1954, when appellants Pond and Bobe conveyed land to the appellees by warranty deed that reserved the minerals. On June 17, 1976, Pond and Bobe executed a coal mining lease with appellant Consolidated Coal Co. The parties stipulated that the interest had not been used and no statement of claim had been filed during the twenty years following its creation, resulting in lapse on March 1, 1974. Notice of the lapse was given by letter and by publication in the Princeton Daily Clarion on March 4, 1977. The parties jointly filed suit on January 12, 1978, to resolve their conflicting claims to the mineral rights. In both cases the agreed statements of facts recorded that the mineral owners had neither used their interests nor filed claims within the statutory periods, and the surface owners had given notice after the periods had expired. The statements did not indicate whether any appellant had known of the Act or its possible effect before receiving notice. The state trial court held the statute unconstitutional. The Indiana Supreme Court reversed. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction and consolidated the appeals.
View case1 common questions
No. Although many states require tax payment during the limitations period for adverse possession of fee title, easements are rarely assessed separately for taxation. Therefore tax payment is ordinarily unnecessary to establish a prescriptive easement.
…kind — ranging from compulsory military service, see, e. g., Gillette v. United States , 401 U. S. 437 (1971), to the payment of taxes, see, e. g., United States v. Lee, supra ; to health and safety regulation such as manslaughter and child neglect laws, see, e. g., Funkhouser v. State , 763 P. 2d 695 (Okla. Crim. App.…