Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 216.0

524US1

Unit: $U81

[09-06-00 20:27:26] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 524 U. S. 156 (1998)

171

Opinion of the Court

1987–1 Cum. Bull. 18; and (2) the Federal Government pro-
hibits for-proﬁt corporations from holding funds in NOW ac-
counts if the interest is paid to the corporation, but permits
corporate funds to be held in NOW accounts if the interest
is paid to the TEAJF, see Federal Reserve’s IOLTA Letter.
In other words, the State does nothing to create value; the
value is created by respondents’ funds. The Federal Gov-
ernment, through the structuring of its banking and taxation
regulations, imposes costs on this value if private citizens
attempt to exercise control over it. Waiver of these costs
if the property is remitted to the State hardly constitutes
“government-created value.”

In any event, we rejected a similar “government-created
value” argument in Webb’s. There, the State of Florida
argued that since the clerk’s authority to invest deposited
funds was a statutorily created right, any interest income
449 U. S.,
generated by the funds was not private property.
at 163. We rejected this argument, explaining that “the
State’s having mandated the accrual of interest does not
mean the State or its designate is entitled to assume own-
Id., at 162.
ership of the interest.”
This would be a different case if the interest income gen-
erated by IOLTA accounts was transferred to the State as
payment “for services rendered” by the State.
Id., at 157.
Our holding does not prohibit a State from imposing reason-
able fees it incurs in generating and allocating interest in-
come. See id., at 162; cf. United States v. Sperry Corp., 493
U. S. 52, 60 (1989) (upholding the imposition of a “reasonable
‘user fee’ ” on those utilizing the Iran-United States Claims
Tribunal). But here the State does not,
indeed cannot,
argue that its conﬁscation of respondents’ interest income
amounts to a fee for services performed. Unlike in Webb’s,
where the State safeguarded and invested the deposited
funds, funds held in IOLTA accounts are managed entirely
by banks and private attorneys.