Page:James Dawson, et ux. v. Dale W. Steager, West Virginia State Tax Commissioner.pdf/9

Rh qualify for its tax exemption. But, the State submits, Mr. Dawson’s former job responsibilities are also similar to those of other state law enforcement retirees who don’t qualify for its tax exemption. And, the State insists, the fact that it treats federal retirees no worse than (some) similarly situated state employees should be enough to save its statute.

But this again mistakes the nature of our inquiry. Under §111, the relevant question isn’t whether federal retirees are similarly situated to state retirees who don’t receive a tax benefit; the relevant question is whether they are similarly situated to those who do. So, for example, in Phillips we compared the class of federal lessees with the favored class of state lessees, even though the State urged us to focus instead on the disfavored class of private lessees. 361 U. S., at 381–382. In Davis, we likewise rejected the State’s effort to compare the class of federal retirees with state residents who did not benefit from the tax exemption rather than those who did. See 489 U. S., at 815, n. 4.

At this point the State is left to play its final card. Now, it says, maybe the real distinction its statute draws isn’t based on former job duties at all. Maybe its statute actually favors certain state law enforcement retirees only because their pensions are less generous than those of their federal law enforcement counterparts. At the least, the State suggests, we should remand the case to the West Virginia courts to explore this possibility.

The problem here is fundamental. While the State was free to draw whatever classifications it wished, the statute it enacted does not classify persons or groups based on the relative generosity of their pension benefits. Instead, it extends a special tax benefit to retirees who served as West Virginia police officers, firefighters, or deputy sheriffs–and it categorically denies that same benefit to retirees who served in similar federal law enforcement