By Jessica Edwards
The Haines Borough has no legal obligation to issue an after-the-fact
tour permit to Tesmco Helicopters, Inc., and should seek back taxes from the company,
assemblywoman Deborah Vogt said last week.
In a letter to the assembly, Vogt wrote, "When one runs a
business, one takes on the responsibility of finding out what the laws are and complying
with them. It is not the government’s job to go out and offer advice to businesses
within its jurisdiction."
Temsco operated in the borough a decade or more without registering as
a business here or paying sales tax. Vogt, an attorney and critic of the industry, said
her interpretation was not a legal opinion.
"It’s an opinion," said borough mayor Fred Shields,
albeit an educated one, he added. "The borough attorney is also working on it."
Vogt said she wrote in response to comments at the April 22 assembly by
audience members, assembly members, and Shields suggesting the borough take legal
precautions before denying a permit to a company that had long operated within the
borough.
"In my view, we have no duty to acquiesce in Temsco’s Haines
borough activity just because we have known about it," Vogt said.
Vogt also sent the borough a 2006 memo she authored regarding another
cross-jurisdictional tax case. In it, she mentions an informal agreement with Skagway
about taxation of tours that originate in one jurisdiction but largely take place in
another.
Vogt said she had drawn on her extensive background in tax law in
compiling the memo, which said "taxes are pretty much liberally construed by the
courts in favor of the taxing jurisdiction."
The two applicable tax principles according to Vogt are the adequate
connection of a municipality to a taxable event, and "fair apportionment,"
adjustments made to ensure transactions across jurisdictional lines aren’t subjected
to double taxation for the same event.
Vogt noted in the memo that Haines and Skagway had an informal
"gentleman’s agreement" stating the municipality in which the majority of a
tour takes place receives tax revenue. She maintains that the majority of helicopter tours
to the Ferebee and Meade glaciers occur within the Haines Borough.
In an interview this week, Vogt said once a taxation rate was
determined for the company, the rate could be applied backward at least two years. "I
think we should go back as far as we can," she said about collecting back taxes.
There is no statute of limitations in borough code, but the borough
requires businesses to keep tax information for the past two or three years, she said.
