State Supreme Court Rules in Favor of City Regarding Jurisdiction

Sep 8th, 2009

The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled unanimously in favor of the City of Mobile in a case which sought a refund of certain license taxes collected by businesses in the City’s police jurisdiction from 2001 – 2003. In Dickson Campers v. City of Mobile, the unanimous Court held that the City was not in violation of the statute which requires that the amount of business license revenue collected in the police jurisdiction not exceed the cost of services rendered by the City to the police jurisdiction.

Mayor Sam Jones said in response to the ruling: “We are pleased that the Alabama Supreme Court recognized that the level of service provided by the City in the police jurisdiction exceeds the amount of tax revenue collected. In fact, our statistics show that the amount of service provided by the City far exceeds not just the business license revenue, but also the total sales tax collected.”

Jones said that this case raises larger issues for the City as “It is fundamentally unfair for taxpayers in the City to continue to subsidize a larger and larger group of persons in the unincorporated area who receive full City services without paying the same taxes to the City and to the school system as City residents do.”

In 2003, Dickson Campers Inc. filed the suit, claiming the city was collecting more tax money than it was spending on services in the police jurisdiction. The suit sought to force the city to return the taxes collected in the jurisdiction, starting in 2001, to business owners.