Opinion ID: 1876539
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 26

Heading: measure of the tax

Text: That our interpretation of the Spector and the Alpha cases is correct is further illustrated by a comparatively recent decision involving facts substantially similar to those of the case at bar, namely, West Publishing Co. v. McColgan, 328 U.S. 823, 66 S. Ct. 1378, 90 L. ed. 1603, affirming 27 Cal. (2d) 705, 166 P. (2d) 861. The West case has been well summarized as follows:    this company was in the law book publishing business, a Minnesota corporation. The company shipped books and other publications into California pursuant to orders taken by its salesmen who devoted their full time to their jobs in California. These employees had space in lawyers' offices in exchange for the use of books stored there. The California employees were authorized to and did receive payments on orders, collected deliquent [sic] accounts and made adjustments on complaints of customers. The State of California cognizant of the fact that a state may not exact a tax for the privilege of doing an exclusively interstate business, imposed an income tax on those corporations not subject to its franchise tax. It made net income the subject as well as the measure of its Corporation Income Tax. It limited the measure of the tax to income from California sources which was understood to mean income from sources of books and periodicals delivered in California. The California Supreme Court sustained the assessment holding that `a tax on net income from interstate commerce as distinguished from a tax on the privilege of engaging in interstate commerce does not conflict with the commerce clause.' The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed this decision by a per curiam opinion. (Italics supplied.) [24]