Unequal Treatment of Local Government Taxpayers in North America

The highest courts of both the United States and Canada have both recently pronounced on claims relating to the unfairness of local government taxation systems. Before the Supreme Court of Canada, the argument went to the substantive reasonableness of the municipal by-law at issue. Further south, the Supreme Court of the United States was asked to find a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Doctrinally, the cases are distinct, but the striking similarity of the issues engaged and the results reached makes for an interesting comparison.