Syllabus
The principle that a government may not take from a taxpayer more than she owes is rooted in English law and can trace its origins at least as far back as Magna Carta. From the founding, the new Government of the United States could seize and sell only “so much of [a] tract of land … as may be necessary to satisfy the taxes due thereon.” Act of July 14, 1798, §13, 1 Stat. 601. Ten States adopted similar statutes around the same time, and the consensus that a government could not take more property than it was owed held true through the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Today, most States and the Federal Government require excess value to be returned to the taxpayer whose property is sold to satisfy outstanding tax debt.
The Court’s precedents have long recognized the principle that a taxpayer is entitled to the surplus in excess of the debt owed. See United States v. Taylor, 104 U. S. 216; United States v. Lawton, 110 U. S. 146. Nelson v. City of New York, 352 U. S. 103, did not change that. The ordinance challenged there did not “absolutely preclud[e] an owner from obtaining the surplus proceeds of a judicial sale,” but instead simply defined the process through which the owner could claim the surplus. Id., at 110. Minnesota’s scheme, in comparison, provides no opportunity for the taxpayer to recover the excess value from the State.
Significantly, Minnesota law itself recognizes in many other contexts that a property owner is entitled to the surplus in excess of her debt. If a bank forecloses on a mortgaged property, state law entitles the homeowner to the surplus from the sale. And in collecting past due taxes on income or personal property, Minnesota protects the taxpayer’s right to surplus. Minnesota may not extinguish a property interest that it recognizes everywhere else to avoid paying just compensation when the State does the taking. Phillips, 524 U. S., at 167. Pp. 4–12.
