Request By:
Mr. John L. Arnett
City Attorney
City of Elizabethtown
128 West Dixie Avenue
P.O. Box 847
Elizabethtown, Kentucky 42701
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; By: Alex W. Rose, Assistant Attorney General
In your letter to the Attorney General, you ask whether federal savings and loan associations and production credit associations with property and operations in Elizabethtown, and which are paying the tax levied by KRS 136.300, are subject to local ad valorem property taxes and occupational taxes.
KRS 136.300 states in applicable part:
"The association or bank for cooperatives shall not be required to pay local taxes upon its capital stock, surplus, undivided profits, notes, mortgages or other credits, and the tax provided by this section shall be in lieu of all taxes for state purposes on property of the association or bank for cooperatives. "
A local ad valorem property tax is not a tax for state purposes. It is thus permitted to be levied on the real and tangible and personal property of savings and loan associations and production credit associations. The statute exempts, however, the intangible personal property of savings and loan associations and production credit associations.
OAG 64-690 interprets KRS 136.300 to exempt these associations from paying local taxes on their gross receipts imposed by an annual license fee. Thus, pursuant to this opinion, the associations would be exempt from a city's occupational license tax.