Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/279/245
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:42:36+00:00

Document:
Argued: Feb. 27 and 28, 1929.
Mr. James G. Wheeler, of Paducah, Ky., for plaintiffs in error.
Mr. James M. Gilbert, of Frankfort, Ky., for defendant in error.
This is an action brought by the Commonwealth of Kentucky against plaintiffs in error to recover an amount levied under § 1, c. 120, Acts 1924, 1 which imposes a tax of three cents per gallon on all gasoline sold within the commonwealth at wholesale. The words 'sold 'at wholesale," as used in the act, are defined to include 'any and all sales made for the purpose of resale or distribution or for use,' and also to include any person who shall purchase such gasoline without the state 'and sell or distribute or use the same within the state.' The tax was increased from three cents to five cents a gallon by section 1, c. 169, Acts 1926, and part of the amount sued for was computed at the latter rate.
Plaintiffs in error are engaged in operating a ferryboat on the Ohio river between Kentucky and Illinois. They do an exclusively interstate business. They are citizens and residents of Illinois. Their office and place of business and the situs of all their personal property is in that state. The motive power of the boat is created by the use of gasoline, all of which is purchased and delivered to plaintiffs in error in Illinois. It is stipulated that 75 per cent. of this gasoline was actually consumed within the limits of Kentucky, but all of it in the making of interstate journeys. The tax in question was computed and imposed upon the use of the gasoline thus consumed.
The trial court rendered judgment for the commonwealth, which was affirmed by the state court of appeals. Metropolis Ferry Co. v. Commonwealth, 225 Ky. 45, 7 S.W.(2d) 506. The validity of the statute as applied by the state courts was assailed upon the grounds: (1) That it violated the provisions of the state Constitution requiring that taxes should be uniform upon all property of the same class; and (2) that it was in controvention of the commerce clause and other provisions of the federal Constitution. The state court of appeals held that the tax was not a property tax, but an excise, and, therefore, the uniformity clause of the state Constitution was not involved. The claim under the commerce clause of the federal Constitution was denied on the ground that the tax was confined to gasoline used within the limits of the state and the commerce clause was not affected. It is with the latter question only that we are here concerned.
Regulation of interstate and foreign commerce is a matter committed exclusively to the control of Congress, and the rule is settled by innumerable decisions of this court, unnecessary to be cited that a state law which directly burdens such commerce by taxation or otherwise constitutes a regulation beyond the power of the state under the Constitution. It is likewise settled that transportation by ferry from one state to another is interstate commerce and immune from the interfence of such state legislation. Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196, 217, 5 S. Ct. 826, 29 L. Ed. 158; Mayor of Vidalia v. McNeely, 274 U. S. 676, 680, 47 S. Ct. 758, 71 L. Ed. 1292. The power vested in Congress to regulate commerce embraces within its control all the instrumentalities by which that commerce may be carried on. Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, supra, 114 U. S. page 204, 5 S. Ct. 826, 29 L. Ed. 158. A state cannot 'lay a tax on interstate commerce in any form, whether by way of duties laid on the transportation of the subjects of that commerce, or on the receipts derived from that transportation, or on the occupation or business of carrying it on.' Leloup v. Port of Mobile, 127 U. S. 640, 648, 8 s. Ct. 1380, 1384 (32 L. Ed. 311); Lyng v. Michigan, 135 U. S. 161, 166, 10 S. Ct. 725, 34 L. Ed. 150; Ozark Pipe Line v. Monier, 266 U. S. 555, 562, 45 S. Ct. 184, 69 L. Ed. 439. While a state has power to tax property having a situs within its limits, whether employed in interstate commerce or not, it cannot interfere with interstate commerce through the imposition of a tax which is, in effect, a tax for the privilege of transacting such commerce. Adams Express Company v. Ohio, 166 U. S. 185, 218, 17 S. Ct. 604, 41 L. Ed. 965.
The following are a few of the cases illustrating the many applications of these principles.
The statute here assailed clearly comes within the principle of these and numerous other decisions of like character which might be added. The tax is exacted as the price of the privilege of using an instrumentality of interstate commerce. It reasonably cannot be distinguished from a tax for using a locomotive or a car employed in such commerce. A tax laid upon the use of the ferryboat would present an exact parallel. And is not the fuel consumed in propelling the boat an instrumentality of commerce no less than the boat itself? A tax which falls directly upon the use of one of the means by which commerce is carried on directly burdens that commerce. If a tax cannot be laid by a state upon the interstate transportation of the subjects of commerce, as this Court definitely has held, it is little more than repetition to say that such a tax cannot be laid upon the use of a medium by which such transportation is effected. 'All restraints by exactions in the form to taxes upon such transportation, or upon acts necessary to its completion, are so many invasions of the exclusive power of Congress to regulate that portion of commerce between the States.' Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, supra, 114 U. S. 214 (5 S. Ct. 833).
In view of earlier decisions of the court, I acquiesce in the result. But I cannot yield assent to the reasoning by which the present forbidden tax on the use of property in interstate commerce is distinguished from a permissible tax on property, measured by its use or use value in interstate commerce. Cudahy Packing Co. v. Minnesota, 246 U. S. 450, 456, 38 S. Ct. 373, 62 L. Ed. 827; Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Ry. Co. v. Backus, 154 U. S. 439, 445, 14 S. Ct. 1122, 38 L. Ed. 1041; Adams Express Co. v. Ohio State Auditor, 165 U. S. 194, 220, 17 S. Ct. 305, 41 L. Ed. 683; Western Union Tel. Co. v. Missouri, 190 U. S. 412, 422, 23 S. Ct. 730, 47 L. Ed. 1116; cf. Pullman's Palace Car Co. v. Pennsylvania, 141 U. S. 18, 11 S. Ct. 876, 35 L. Ed. 613. Nor can I find any practical justification for this distinction or for an interpretation of the commerce clause which would relieve those engaged in interstate commerce from their fair share of the expense of government of the states in which they operate by exempting them from the payment of a tax of general application, which is neither aimed at nor discriminates against interstate commerce. It 'affects commerce among the states and impedes the transit of persons and property from one state to another just in the same way, and in no other, that taxation of any kind necessarily increases the expenses attendant upon the use or possession of the thing taxed.' Delaware Railroad Tax, 18 Wall. 206, 232 (21 L. Ed. 888).
NASHVILLE, C. & ST. L. RY. v. WALLACE, Comptroller of Treasury of Tennessee, et al.

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