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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1442', '§ 1', '§ 1442', '§ 1442', '§ 2', '§ 5520', '§ 8', '§ 13', '§ 1442', '§ 1442', '§ 1443', '§ 4', '§ 40', '§ 40', '§40', '§40', '§ 40', '§ 40', '§ 40', '§ 40', '§ 40', '§ 40', '§ 4016', '§ 40', '§40', '§27']

JEFFERSON COUNTY, ALABAMA v. ACKER, SENIOR JUDGE, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA, ET AL. 527 U.S. 423 - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
US Supreme Court Decisions - On-Line> Volume 527 > JEFFERSON COUNTY, ALABAMA v. ACKER, SENIOR JUDGE, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA, ET AL. 527 U.S. 423
JEFFERSON COUNTY, ALABAMA v. ACKER, SENIOR JUDGE, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA, ET AL. 527 U.S. 423
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1. The case was properly removed under the federal officer removal statute. That provision permits a federal-court officer to remove to federal district court any state-court civil action commenced against the officer "for any act under color of office." 28 U. S. C. § 1442(a)(3). To qualify for removal, the officer must both raise a colorable federal defense, see Mesa v. California, 489 U. S. 121, 139, and establish that thecralaw
(a) The Eleventh Circuit's holding that the tax violates the intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine as applied to federal judges extends that doctrine beyond the tight limits this Court has set. Until 1938, the doctrine was expansively applied to prohibit Federal and Statecralaw
(b) The Court rejects the judges' contention that two features of the Ordinance remove the tax from the Public Salary Tax Act shelter and render it an unconstitutional licensing scheme. The Court finds unpersuasive the judges' first argument that the Ordinance, by declaring it "unlawful ... to engage in" a covered occupation, falls under Johnson v. Maryland, 254 U. S. 51, 57, which held that a State could not require a federal postal employee to obtain a state driver's license before performing his federal duties. The incautious "unlawful ... to engage in" words likely were written with nonfederal employees, the vast majority of the occupational taxpayers, in front view. The Ordinance's actual operation is the decisive factor. See Detroit v. Murray Corp. of America, 355 U. S. 489, 492. In practice, the county's license tax serves a revenue-raising, not a regulatory, purpose. The county neither issues licenses to taxpayers, nor in any way regulates them in the performance of their duties based on their status as license taxpayers. Cf., e. g., Johnson, 254 U. S., at 57. In response to the judges'cralaw
GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, Parts I and III of which were unanimous, Part II of which was joined by STEVENS, O'CONNOR, KENNEDY, and BREYER, JJ., and Part IV of which was joined by REHNQUIST, C.J., and STEVENS, SCALIA, KENNEDY, SOUTER, and THOMAS, JJ. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and SOUTER and THOMAS, JJ., joined, post, p. 444. BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which O'CONNOR, J., joined, post, p. 448.
Kent L. Jones argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae in support of petitioner. With him on thecralaw
tFor the reasons stated in the opinion of JUSTICE SCALIA, THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE SCALIA, JUSTICE SOUTER, and JUSTICE THOMAS do not believe this case was properly removed from state court. The Court having concluded otherwise, they join Parts I, III, and IV of this opinion.cralaw
1 Most States, it appears, like Alabama, have not authorized local imposition of an "income tax." See J. Aronson & J. Hilley, Financing State and Local Governments 149 (4th ed. 1986) ("Eleven states have authorized their local governments to levy wage or income taxes."); cf. 1 CCH State Tax Guide ~ 15-100, p. 3512 (1998) (listing cities in 11 States that impose personal income taxes).cralaw
2 The District Court also held that applying the tax to the judges diminished their pay and therefore violated the Compensation Clause of Article III of the Constitution. See Jefferson County v. Acker, 850 F. Supp., at 1548; U. S. Const., Art. III, § 1 (federal judges "shall ... receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office"). The Court of Appeals declined to address that question, and it is not before this Court. See Jefferson County v. Acker, 92 F.3d 1561, 1566 (CAll 1996) (en bane).cralaw
3 Other subsections of § 1442 establish similar removal rights for other federal officers. See 28 U. S. C. §§ 1442(a), (b) (1994 ed. and Supp. III).cralaw
In construing the colorable federal defense requirement, we have rejected a "narrow, grudging interpretation" of the statute, recognizing that "one of the most important reasons for removal is to have the validity of the defense of official immunity tried in a federal court." 395 U. S., at 407. We therefore do not require the officer virtually to "win his case before he can have it removed." Ibid. Here, the judges argued, and the Eleventh Circuit held, that Jefferson County's tax falls on "the performance of federal judicial duties in Jefferson County" and "risk[s] interfering with the operation of the federal judiciary" in violation of the intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine; that argument, although we ultimately reject it, see infra, at 435-443, presents a colorable federal defense. Jefferson County, 92 F. 3d, at 1572. There is no dispute on this point. See post, at 448 (SCALIA, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).cralaw
JUSTICE SCALIA maintains that the county's lawsuit was not grandly "for" the judges' performance of their official duties, but narrowly "for" their having refused to pay the tax. The judges' resistance to payment of the tax, he states, was neither required by the responsibilities of their offices nor undertaken in the course of job performance. See post, at 447. The county's lawsuit, however, was not simply "for" a refusal; it was "for" payment of a tax. The county asserted that the judges had failed to comply with the Ordinance; read literally, as the judges urge and as we acceptcralaw
This statutory text "is to be enforced according to its terms" and should be interpreted to advance "its purpose" of "confin[ing] federal-court intervention in state government." Arkansas v. Farm Credit Servs. of Central Ark., 520 U. S. 821,826-827 (1997). By its terms, the Act bars anticipatory relief, suits to stop ("enjoin, suspend or restrain") the collection of taxes. Recognizing that there is "little practical difference" between an injunction and anticipatory relief in the form of a declaratory judgment, the Court has held that declaratory relief falls within the Act's compass. California v. Grace Brethren Church, 457 U. S. 393, 408 (1982). But a suit to collect a tax is surely not brought to restrain statecralaw
4 The Second Circuit further stated that "[e]ven if Congress did not intend the Act's jurisdictional bar to reach so far, ... we believe that general principles of federal court abstention would nonetheless require us to stay our hand here." 947 F. 2d, at 551. Keleher was a diversity action raising " 'difficult questions of state law bearing on policy problems of substantial public import.''' Ibid. (quoting Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U. S. 800, 814 (1976)). See infra, at 435, n. 5.cralaw
5 As noted in Keleher v. New England Telephone & Telegraph Co., 947 F. 2d 547, 551 (CA2 1991), see supra, at 434, n. 4, abstention and stay doctrines may counsel federal courts to withhold adjudication, according priority to state courts on questions concerning the meaning and proper application of a state tax law. Cf. Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315, 332-334 (1943); Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U. S. 706,719-721 (1996) (in a case seeking damages, rather than equitable relief, a federal court may not abstain, but can stay the action pending resolution of the state-law issue). No one has argued for the application of such doctrines here.cralaw
Gerhardt, 304 U. S. 405, 424 (1938), which held that the Federal Government could tax the salaries of employees of the Port of New York Authority. See also James v. Dravo Contracting Co., 302 U. S. 134, 138, 149, 159-161 (1937) (in determining that a state "privilege ta[x]" on federal contractors did not violate the intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine, the Court rejected the theory that a tax on income is a tax on its source (internal quotation marks omitted)).cralaw
"The United States consents to the taxation of payor compensation for personal service as an officer or employee of the United States, a territory or possession or political subdivision thereof, the government of the District of Columbia, or an agency or instrumentality of one or more of the foregoing, by a duly constituted taxing authority having jurisdiction, if the taxation does not discriminate against the officer or employee because of the source of the payor compensation."cralaw
10 JUSTICE BREYER both recapitulates the reasoning of Justice Douglas' dissenting opinion in Howard and endeavors to distinguish the Court's decision in that case as involving "only [a] jurisdictional issue." Post, at 457 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). One of the two questions on which the Court granted certiorari in Howard, however, explicitly asked the Court to determine "[t]he validity of the Louisville occupational tax or license fee ordinance as applied to employees of the [Naval] Ordnance Plant." 344 U. S., at 625. The Court squarely held: "[T]he tax is valid." Id., at 629.cralaw
Jefferson County's Ordinance declares it "unlawful ... to engage in" a covered occupation (as pertinent here, to carry out the duties of a federal judge) without paying the license fee. Ordinance No. 1120, § 2. Based on the quoted words,cralaw
In practice, Jefferson County's license tax serves a revenue-raising, not a regulatory, purpose. Jefferson County neither issues licenses to taxpayers, nor in any way regulates them in the performance of their duties based on their status as licensed taxpayers. Cf. Johnson, 254 U. S., at 57 ("[The state license requirement] lays hold of [Federal Government employees] in their specific attempt to obey [federal] orders and requires qualifications in addition to those that the [Federal] Government has pronounced sufficient."); Leslie Miller, Inc. v. Arkansas, 352 U. S. 187, 189, 190 (1956) (per curiam) (holding that private contractors, seeking to bid on federal contracts, cannot be required first to submit to state licensing procedures that "determin[e]" a contractor's "qualifications"; such state regulation is inconsistent with the governing federal procurement statute and regulations, which provide standards for judging the "responsibility" of competitive bidders (internal quotation marks omitted)). In response to the judges' refusal to pay the tax, Jefferson County has done no more than institute a collection suit. See Jefferson County, 92 F. 3d, at 1565. Alabama, of course, cannot make it unlawful to carry out thecralaw
As a matter of undisputed fact, the burdens JUSTICE BREYER posits are hypothetical, not real. As the parties stipulated, "[a]ll active judges of the Northern District of Alabama except [respondents] have paid the County Occupational Tax on differing percentages of their judicial salaries," but "neither the Administrative Office of the United States Courts nor any Article III judge in the Northern District of Alabama ... has ever made an oath certifying the alleged amounts of a federal judge's salary earned within and without Jefferson County," and "[t]he Administrative Office ... has never withheld County Occupational Tax from any federal judge or court employee." Jefferson County, 850 F. Supp., at 1549; see also 5 U. S. C. § 5520(a) (authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to enter into tax withholding agreements with local taxing authorities). Should Jefferson County someday exceed constitutional limits in its enforcement endeavors, a federal court would no doubt conserve what is constitutional, in line with the severability clauses contained in the state law and county Ordinance. See 1967 Ala. Acts 406, § 8; Jefferson County Ordinance No. 1120, § 13 (1987).cralaw
13 The District Court ruled that the judges had failed to establish that the county's tax discriminates against federal officers or employees because of the source of their payor compensation. See Jefferson County, 850 F. Supp., at 1539-1540. On appeal there was no contention that this determination was erroneous. See Jefferson County, 92 F. 3d, at 1566, n. 9. The judges nevertheless press the argument that the tax is discriminatory as an alternative ground for affirmance. See Brief for Respondents 34-37.cralaw
Respondents read Ordinance No. 1120 as creating more than tax liability; in their view, the ordinance makes it unlawful to work if the tax goes unpaid. Building upon this reading, they assert that the county has sued them for performing their duties without a license, a complaint that would clearly establish the causal connection required by 28 U. S. C. § 1442(a)(3). This theory, however, is simply inconsistent with the complaints the county filed. It may perhaps be possible under Alabama law for the county to bring a misdemeanor prosecution against one who engages in a business or profession without having paid the required license fee; and the county may perhaps have a right to enjoin the conduct of a business or the practice of a profession when the license fee has not been paid. But no such action is before us here. Instead, the county has sued each of these respondents for refusing to pay the fee, as evidenced by the fact that the only relief it sought was the money due. See Complaints in Nos. DV9209643 and DV9209695 (Jefferson County District Court). When identifying, for purposes of § 1442(a)(3), what a suit is "for," it is necessary to focus, not on grounds of liability that the plaintiff could assert, but on the ground actually asserted. Regardless of whether Ordinance No. 1120 also purports to proscribe working without a license, these suits were only about respondents' refusal to pay the tax. That refusal is thus the act to whichcralaw
1 Some confusion may have resulted from the fact that the Government argued this issue in a way that did conflate the merits with removal. See ante, at 432. It said that there was no causal connection because "[t]he tax ... was imposed only upon [the judges] personally and not upon the United States or upon any instrumentality of the United States." Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20. As I explain above, however, proving who the fee was imposed upon does not answer the question of what the suit is for.cralaw
"That when any civil suit or criminal prosecution is commenced in any court of a State against any officer appointed under or acting by authority of any revenue law of the United States ... or against any person acting under or by authority of any such officer, on account of any act done under color of his office ... the said suit or prosecution may at any time before the trial or final hearing thereof be removed for trial into the district court next to be holden in the district where the same is pending .... " 39 Stat. 532, ch. 399.cralaw
None of this is to suggest, of course, that removal is justified only when the federal officer can prove that the act prompting suit is, beyond doubt, an official one. If that were the case, the merits truly would be subsumed within the jurisdictional question of removal; the defense of qualified immunity, for example, would always be resolved as a threshold jurisdictional question-an odd result when the main point of 28 U. S. C. § 1443 is to give officers a federal forum in which to litigate the merits of immunity defenses. See Willingham v. Morgan, supra, at 407. The point is only that the officer should have to identify as the gravamen of the suit an act that was, if not required by, at least closely connected with, the performance of his official functions. 28cralaw
If Jefferson County's license fee amounts to a tax imposed directly upon a federal official's performance of his official duties, it runs afoul of the intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine. See United States v. New Mexico, 455 U. S. 720, 733 (1982) ("[A] State may not, consistent with the Supremacy Clause, U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2, lay a tax 'directly upon the United States'" (citation omitted)); James v. Dravo Contracting Co., 302 U. S. 134, 157 (1937); e. g., Leslie Miller, Inc. v. Arkansas, 352 U. S. 187, 190 (1956) (per curiam) (" '[I]mmunity''' of federal" 'instruments'" from state control in performance of duties extends to state requirement that "'they desist from performance'" until they take an examination to satisfy the State "'that they are competent'" and "'pay a fee for permission to go on''') (quoting Johnson v. Maryland, 254 U. S. 51, 57 (1920)). On the othercralaw
First, the language, structure, and purpose of the ordinance indicate that it imposes a fee upon the performance of work, not a tax upon income. The ordinance is entitled "Occupational Tax." It describes its purpose as establishingcralaw
Second, the tax, as measured, works more like a licensing fee than an income tax. On the one hand, the tax calculation does not include many kinds of income, such as retirement income, dividends, interest, or other unearned income, or earned income if that income is earned outside the county-irrespective of how much income is involved. See Ordinance No. 1120, § l(F). On the other hand, by the terms of the ordinance, not only a county resident but also a nonresident who works some of the time in Jefferson County, §§ l(B), 3, must pay the tax as long as he becomes "entitled to receive" pay for his work, even if he receives that paycralaw
Third, Jefferson County's tax is riddled with exceptions, which make sense only if one sees the tax as part of a statewide occupational licensing scheme, not as an income tax. See 1967 Ala. Acts 406, § 4 (authorizing counties to impose a license tax only in respect to occupations not subject to state, or other county, licensing taxes). The ordinance excludes from its definition of "vocation, occupation, calling and profession" domestic servants, those engaged in occupations licensed elsewhere by the county, and those engaged in the more than 150 occupations licensed by the State. Ordinance No. 1120, § l(B). This last-mentioned category is large. Its members range from architects to amusement park operators, from detectives to dentists, from laundry owners to lawyers, from sewing machine operators to scientists. See generally Ala. Code § 40-12-41 et seq. (1993); Appendix, infra, at 458-464. And the licensing fees that the State exacts from this range of individuals are, with only a few exceptions, all unrelated to income. Each attorney, for example, pays "an annual license tax to the state" in the amount of $250, § 40-12-49; each civil, electrical, or mechanical engineer pays $20, §40-12-99; and each ticket scalper pays $100, §40-12-167. Some fees vary depending upon special industry-related features, such as population (e. g., advertising, § 40-12-45; amusement park operators, § 40-1247), number of employees (e. g., automobile garages or shops, § 40-12-54), or business size (e. g., soft-drink bottlers, number of bottles per minute, § 40-12-65; construction companies, value of orders accepted, § 40-12-84; vending machine operators, total sales, § 40-12-176). License fees for a handful of businesses are measured by the income or gross receipts of the company (not of a private person). See § 4016-4 (certain financial institutions); §§ 40-21-50, 40-21-53cralaw
Fourth, Jefferson County's ordinance directly imposes upon the Federal Government (the federal official's employer) burdens that to a limited extent exceed those imposed by an ordinary state or local income tax. The ordi-cralaw
The majority either ignores or attempts to distinguish each of these features on its own, as by itself potentially unconsitutional or found in other income taxes. Ante, at 439-442. But it is a consideration of the whole, not of each separate part, that leads to my conclusion. To properly characterize a tax, all of its distinguishing features must becralaw
See also id., at 811-812 ("[D]uring most of the legislative process leading to adoption of the Act it was unclear whether state taxation of federal employees was still barred by intergovernmental tax immunity"); H. R. Rep. No. 26, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1939). If Jefferson County's tax is not an income tax and hence falls outside the scope of Graves, this statute cannot save it.cralaw
Nonetheless, the Buck Act does not apply here. Congress passed the Buck Act in 1940 because it was uncertain whether the consent to taxation provided in the 1939 Public Salary Tax Act would extend to income taxes on those who lived or worked in federal areas; Congress feared that these taxes would be barred for a special reason-namely, that States might lack jurisdiction to apply their laws to those who lived or worked in such areas. See S. Rep. No. 1625, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., 3 (1940). Consequently, the Buck Act's language consents to nothing. Rather, it says "[n]o person shall be relieved" of liability for "any income tax" by virtue of a particular circumstance, specifically, "by reason of" that person's "residing within a Federal area" or his "receiving income from transactions occurring or services performed"cralaw
The case before us falls outside the Buck Act because no one here has asked to "be relieved" of tax liability "by reason of his residing within a Federal area or receiving income from ... services performed in such area." § l06(a). Rather, the respondents claim that Jefferson County's ordinance is unconstitutional, not by reason of the federal nature of where they work, but by reason of the federal nature of what they do. And for the reasons discussed above, the county's ordinance would violate the intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine whether or not the respondents lived or worked in a federal area. The Buck Act cannot help the county's claim because it gives the State power to tax income earned in a federal area only "to the same extent" and "with the same effect as," not to a greater extent than, if that income were earned elsewhere. Ibid. Indeed, for the reasons I discussed earlier, Jefferson County's tax falls outside the Act because it is a "tax on ... the United States." § l07(a).cralaw
For these reasons, I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.cralaw
*See Ala. Code §§40-12-40 et seq., 40-16-4, 40-21-50, 40-21-52 through 40-21-55, 40-21-57 through 40-21-60 (1993); Ala. Code §27-4-9 (1986). Each of these provisions is specifically mentioned among the exclusions in Jefferson County Ordinance No. 1120, § l(B) (1987).cralaw
Persons whose principal business is buying cottoncralaw
Dealers in hides or furs, other than cattle, sheep, goat, or horse hidescralaw
Persons operating moving picture showscralaw
Persons and corporations who operate sawmills, heading mills, or stave millscralaw
Persons operating public utilitiescralaw