Aspen Colorado Waste Reduction Fee Upheld
The ordinance clearly expresses an intent that the waste reduction fees remitted to the City be used for several other functions reducing the cost to the City of litter cleanup and waste disposal, including education regarding trash and waste management, the funding of programs and the presentation of community events regarding trash and waste management, and outreach through the use of a website to educate the public about these topics.
Thus, we conclude that the City intended the charge to finance a particular class of services related to the reduction of trash and waste and to fund education about those matters.
Princeton University Will Have To Prove It Deserves Property Tax Exemption
Although this is a bit of an oversimplification, there is a grim logic to municipal finance. You take the part of the town budget funded by property taxes and divide by the total value of taxed property and that is your tax rate (often expressed as dollars per thousand). As any bright fourth grader could tell you back in the day, lowering the denominator will give you a higher fraction. That is presumably why other taxpayers have standing to challenge the exemption. Sometimes you will find that dubious tax breaks cannot be addressed by courts because nobody has standing to challenge them. That is what happened with Freedom From Religions challenge to the parsonage exclusion.
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Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.