Published: June 05, 2009 09:02 am      

Corbin wins fight for Knox taxes

Judge rules Knox County will lose occupational taxes from city limits

By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

A judge ruled Thursday in favor of Corbin in an occupational tax dispute with Knox County.

Senior Circuit Judge Rod Messer’s ruling states, “(U)pon collection by the City of Corbin of its occupational license fee, all Corbin taxpayers who also owe an occupational fee to Knox County shall be allowed to credit the amount of the occupational license fee paid to the City of Corbin against the occupational license fee owed to Knox County.”

On Thursday afternoon, Knox Judge-Executive J.M. Hall said the county “respectfully disagrees with this ruling.” He said the fiscal court will appeal Messer’s decision.

Doug McSwain, the county’s attorney in the matter, issued a statement, saying, the county “disagrees with the portion of the opinion that says Knox County must recognize any credits.”

He reinforced Hall’s intention to appeal that particular portion of the finding and added, “Knox County agrees with the portion of the opinion that upholds the agreement between Knox County and Barbourville.”

The statement concludes, “Knox County intends to fully collect all occupational license taxes owed to the county during the appeal. In this respect, nothing has changed.”

When asked, Knox Magistrate Guilio Cima, who represents the population that lives in the Knox County portion of Corbin’s city limits, had no comment on the issue.

Corbin Mayor Willard McBurney said he was “very satisfied and pleased” with Messer’s ruling. The income from the taxes will be used to “improve all of town,” he said.

The struggle for tax money from the workers in the roughly 27 percent of Corbin that lays in Knox County began in April of last year.

That was when the city filed suit for a portion of the one percent tax collected by Knox County.

Currently, Corbin gets 75 percent of Whitley County’s occupational tax collected from workers inside the Whitley County portion of the city.

But it collects no portion of the Knox County money reaped from the Knox County section of the city.

In 2005, Corbin established its own occupational tax, but the city has yet to begin collecting it.

The lawsuit filed by Corbin calls for those who work in the Knox County section of town to be able to credit their city occupational tax against the county occupational tax when and if the city tax is enacted.

Thus, the worker would pay only one of the taxes, unless the city tax is less than the county tax. Then the portion collected by the city would be credited against that portion of the county’s tax.

In an analysis of the controversy, Messer said in his judgement, “Corbin stands to collect considerable revenue if its claim is allowed without increasing the tax burden on its taxpayers who are also subject to the Knox County tax.”

The Knox County/Barbourville agreement addressed earlier in the statement from McSwain is the deal made between the county and Barbourville on Oct. 28, 2003, that said Barbourville will collect 32 percent of occupational taxes collected county-wide until 2012, after 2012, Barbourville will collect 25 percent.

Corbin had argued in the suit that the agreement effectively caused workers in Corbin’s Knox County section to give a portion of their money to Barbourville and Barbourville has no right to directly or indirectly tax people outside its city limits.

In his opinion, Messer overruled Corbin’s motion for summary judgement that the October 2003 agreement is against the law.