Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/322/335/case.php
Timestamp: 2019-06-18 22:52:50
Document Index: 270826683

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 6943', '§ 6943', '§ 6943', '§ 6943', '§ 6943', '§ 6943']

GENERAL TRADING CO. V. STATE TAX COMM'N, 322 U. S. 335 (1944) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
US Supreme Court Decisions On-Line> Volume 322 > GENERAL TRADING CO. V. STATE TAX COMM'N, 322 U. S. 335 (1944)
Subscribe to Cases that cite 322 U. S. 335
Certiorari, 320 U.S. 731, to review the affirmance of a judgment for the State Tax Commission in an action to recover use taxes. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
§ 6943.103, Code of Iowa 1939. The use of property the sale of which is subject to Iowa's sales tax is exempted from the use tax (§ 6943.104(1)), but the sales tax can be laid only on sales at retail within the State. § 6943.075. The use tax constitutes a debt owed by the retailer to the State. § 6943.112. But "[e]very retailer maintaining a place of business" in Iowa must collect this tax from the purchaser (§ 6943.109), and may not advertise that he will himself absorb the tax. § 6943.111. Finally, an offsetting credit chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
We brought the case here, 320 U.S. 731, to meet the claim that there was need for further precision regarding the scope of our previous rulings on the power of States to levy use taxes. In view however of the clear understanding by the court below that the facts we have summarized bring the transaction within the taxing power of Iowa, there is little need for elaboration. We agree with the Iowa Supreme Court that Felt & Tarrant Mfg. Co. v. Gallagher, 306 U. S. 62; Nelson v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., supra, and Nelson v. Montgomery Ward, supra, are chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
None of these infirmities affects the tax in this case any more than it did in the other cases with which it forms a group. The tax is what it professes to be -- a nondiscriminatory excise laid on all personal property consumed in Iowa. The property is enjoyed by an Iowa resident partly because the opportunity is given by Iowa to enjoy property no matter whence acquired. The exaction is made against the ultimate consumer -- the Iowa resident who is paying taxes to sustain his own state government. To make the distributor the tax collector for the State is a familiar and sanctioned device. 292 U. S. 93-94; Felt & Tarrant Mfg. Co. v. Gallagher, [email protected]
In this case, as the opinion points out, the General Trading Company never qualified in Iowa, and has no office, branch, warehouse, or general agent in the State. From Minnesota it ships goods ordered from salesmen by purchasers in Iowa. Orders are accepted only in Minnesota. The transaction of sale is not taxed, and, being clearly interstate commerce, is not taxable. McLeod v. Dilworth Co., ante, p. 322 U. S. 327. So we are holding that a state has power to make a tax collector of one whom it has no power to tax. Certainly no state has a constitutional warrant for making a tax collector of one as the price of the privilege of doing interstate commerce. He does not get the right from the state, and the state cannot qualify it. I can imagine no principle of states' rights or state comity which can justify what is done here. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary