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B-227388 1 (1987-09-03)

handle is hein.gao/gaobadmvb0001 and id is 1 raw text is: The Comptroller General of the United States Washington, D.C. 20548 Decision Matter of- Propriety of SSA paying Municipality's Alarm System Registration Fee. File: B-227388 Date: September 3, 1987 DIGEST 1. The alarm system registration fee imposed by the City of Council Bluffs, Iowa, is actually a tax which is levied to defray the costs of emergency services which are required by law to be provided. These services must be provided to the United States on the same basis as to any citizen, even though the federal government is constitutionally immune from paying the taxes which support these services. 2. The false alarm fines imposed by the City of Council Bluffs, Iowa, are not payable by the federal government unless there has been an express statutory waiver of sovereign immunity. DECISION By letter dated May 28, 1987, an authorized certifying officer of the Social Security Administration (SSA), Department of Health and Human Services, requested a decision concerning the propriety of paying various fees and fines imposed by the City of Council Bluffs, Iowa, relating to alarm systems. For the reasons indicated below, we hold that the fee and fines imposed by the City of Council Bluffs, Iowa, are charges which the United States is constitutionally immune from paying. ALARM SYSTEM REGISTRATION FEE The City of Council Bluffs has imposed a fifty dollar alarm system registration fee on the SSA field office in Council Bluffs. The fee is made payable to the City Clerk ostensibly to support the Pottawattamie County Division of Communications 9-1-1 Center. We have addressed the issue of service fees a number of times and have followed the general rule that where the service is authorized or required by law to be offered and a service fee is assessed to defray its costs, the fee amounts to a tax which the federal government may not constitutionally be required to pay. B-215735.2, April 20, 1987, 66 Comp. Gen. ; see also, 64 Comp. Gen. 655, 657-58 (1985); B-168024, Dec. 13, 1973.

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