Washington State

Office of the Attorney General

Attorney General

Bob Ferguson

AGO 1961 NO. 8 >

(1) Legislation would be constitutional which would authorize cities owning transit systems to impose a sales tax on sales of city-furnished utility services (water and electricity); the tax to be collected with the utility charge by the utility and placed in the proper fund to be used to subsidize the city transit.(2) Where the city divided its utility charge into two parts, one a basic minimum charge and one a surcharge based upon the quantity of service used over the stated minimum, a sales tax would be constitutional which was imposed only on the basic minimum utility charge.