Texas Attorney General Opinion: WW-437 Page: 4 of 5
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Hon. Robert S. Calvert, page 4, (WW-437)
The statute speaks in clearly mandatory terms in stating
that it shall be the duty of every person claiming a tax re-
fund to verify the :onten.ts-of the claim which he files and
further that "ancy such persons who sha file ciaim for tax
refund on any motor fuel which as been used for any purpose
for which a tax refund is not authorized herein, . . .shall
forfeit his right for the Cntire amount of the refund claim
filed. "
In GpInion No. V-1487 this office adv.aed you that the
tax refunds authorized by the Motor Fuel Tax law are in the
nature of exemptions or exceptions and must be strictly con-
strued. The statutory procedure must be strictly complied
with in order to entitle the claimant to the right granted
him by the statute.
The results which ensue In this case are no harsher then
those which ensue in many cases where a taxpayer mistakenly
or unintentionally fails to comply with the provisions of tne
law. Section (f) of Article 7065b-13 expressly provides
that no refund of tax shall ever be made in those cases in
wnich the sale or delivery of the motor fuel was made more
than six months prior to the date the refund claim was received
in the Comptroller's office. No one would question the manda-
tory nature of this provision, yet a taxpayer might as inno-
cently and mistakenly fall to file his claim for refund within
the prescribed six months' period as he might mistake the
number of gallons of motor fuel on which the amount of his
refund should be based. As a practical matter, the taxpayer
rather than the-Comptroller must shoulder the burden of
ascertaining the correctness of his claim, or the burdens
of enforcing the Motor Fuel Tax law would be immeasurably
increased.
In any event, regardless of our view as to the desirabil-
Ity or undesirability of the result we have reached in this
case, it has been stated that it is the proper function of a
court to enforce the law as made by the Legislature rather
than to announce what the law should be or to speculate as to
why it is as it is. No court is authorized under any pretext
to nullify, repeal or rewrite an unambiguous act to conform
to its own notions of justice or wisdom. 39 Tex. Jur. 163,
164, Statutes, Sec. 89. Certainly this office could not do
that which is beyond the authority of a court of law. You are
therefore advised that the claimant in the case ygou have sub-
mitted for our consIderatIon has forfeited his right to'the
entire amount of the claimed refund.
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: WW-437, text, May 23, 1958; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth267049/m1/4/?q=%221958~%22: accessed May 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.