Opinion ID: 2022568
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: $343,425.77 plus (b) $155,289.87 plus (c) $3,101,533.66 $7,860,314.69

Text: The Appellate Tax Board found that the disputed items (b) and (c) above represented sales in interstate commerce and ruled that these sales could not be used as a basis for a tax on gross receipts. This determination resulted in an assignment by the board of gross receipts to Massachusetts $343,425.77 producing an allocation fraction of _____________ equal to $7,860,314.69 about 4.4% for this third of net income. [8] Except as already stated, there were no express findings by the board with respect to the extent, if any, to which the salesmen, who effected the sales involved in items (b) and (c), were chiefly connected with or sent out from corporate premises of Breck outside Massachusetts. There were board findings that the territory served by Breck involved in items (b) and (c) was outside Massachusetts; that a part of the sales was made by salesmen resident in Massachusetts and a part by salesmen resident outside of Massachusetts; and that the merchandise involved in these appeals was shipped from stock in Massachusetts. There was, however, before the board an oral concession by counsel for Breck made at the hearing that the only issue ... is with reference to [items] ... (b) and (c) which are the sales billed from the Massachusetts office by salesmen who if connected anywhere are connected with the Massachusetts office, but they are interstate sales (emphasis supplied). The commission contends that the Appellate Tax Board erred in its conclusion that the gross receipts from items (b) and (c) are not to be included in the computation of the excise and in having considered the assessment ... as a direct tax on gross receipts rather than an excise measured by applying the statutory formula ... to a portion of the net income of Breck. The commission concedes that the sales included in items (b) and (c) are sales in interstate commerce. We thus have presented these questions: (1) Does the statutory net income allocation formula (§§ 37, 38) require treating the sales included in items (b) and (c) as sales attributable to Breck's corporate existence and activity in Massachusetts by including them in the numerator of the statutory fraction; and (2) if the statutory formula requires such inclusion of these sales in the Massachusetts numerator, is this inclusion in violation of the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution (art. 1, § 8)? 1. The tax involved is a single excise measured by the sum of a percentage on its corporate excess added to a percentage on its net income as those terms are defined in the act. Originally (and until 1933) it was imposed upon the carrying on or doing of business. Springdale Finishing Co. v. Commonwealth, 242 Mass. 37, 40-41. See Fore River Shipbuilding Corp. v. Commonwealth, 248 Mass. 137, 140-141; Frothingham Buildings v. Commonwealth, 249 Mass. 290, 292-293; Carlos Ruggles Lumber Co. v. Commonwealth, 261 Mass. 450, 452-453; Queens Run Refractories Co. Inc. v. Commonwealth, 270 Mass. 19, 23-24; Thomson Electric Welding Co. v. Commonwealth, 275 Mass. 426, 429, et seq. See also George S. Colton Elastic Web Co. v. United States, 116 Fed. (2d) 202, 204-205 (C.C.A. 1). However, by St. 1933, c. 342, § 1, the words theretofore in § 32 (imposing the excise on domestic corporations) with respect to the carrying on or doing of business were deleted with the purpose [9] of changing the tax to an excise on the privilege of each domestic business corporation to engage in business based upon its corporate existence (and possession of its corporate franchise) during the taxable year, without regard to whether any business was done. In the Carlos Ruggles Lumber Co. case, at pages 452-453, it was said that the excise was not a tax on tangible property ... not an income tax. [10] The excise imposed by § 32 is not a tax upon or measured by gross receipts. So far as its net income measure is concerned, the tax under § 32 will be zero (a) unless a domestic corporation subject to § 32 has a net income, in the sense that its gross income exceeds the expenses (with minor exceptions) allowed as deductions under the Federal income tax law, and (b) unless some of that net income, if there is a net income, is allowable to Massachusetts under the apportionment formula found in §§ 37 and 38. [11] The purpose of the formula (§§ 37 and 38) is, of course, to limit the net income measure of the excise to that reasonably attributable to activities within or closely associated with Massachusetts, so as fairly to reflect the annual benefit to the taxed corporation of its corporate privileges (including their exercise, if exercised) under Massachusetts law. In giving equal weight to percentage factors of (a) tangible property, (b) wages and other compensation paid, and (c) gross receipts, the Massachusetts formula is similar to formulae in use in various other States. [12] With respect to the one-third weight given to gross receipts, gross receipts from sales are not to be allocated outside of Massachusetts (as by statutes of certain other States) except where the sales are clearly identifiable with corporate sales offices in other States through having been negotiated ... by [corporate] agents ... connected with or sent out from premises... owned or rented by the corporation outside the commonwealth. The statutory language of § 38, par. 6, is explicit and must be applied in accordance with its natural meaning (see Carlos Ruggles Lumber Co. v. Commonwealth, 261 Mass. 450, 455) to the extent that constitutional considerations permit. Few court decisions have discussed the allocation formula since its enactment thirty-eight years ago. In Carlos Ruggles Lumber Co. v. Commonwealth, 261 Mass. 450, 454-456, this court passed upon a 1924 excise on a domestic corporation doing some intrastate business in Massachusetts and apparently a volume of business, largely in interstate commerce, [13] in other States. This court (at page 455) said, It is not essential to interstate commerce that persons engaged in it have established places of business in the several States or in more than a single State and held that the petitioner was subject to... [a Massachusetts] excise tax but was entitled to have that tax allocated on the basis of carrying on business both inside and outside of this Commonwealth, obviously because it conducted interstate commerce outside Massachusetts. No consideration was given to the details of the allocating method prescribed in § 38. In Alpha Portland Cement Co. v. Commonwealth, 244 Mass. 530, 555, [14] it was said that, in considering the effect of the tripartite formula based upon property, wages, and gross receipts, the question is not whether a subsidiary percentage standing alone may impinge upon property outside the Commonwealth, but whether the use of all the percentages makes the final result a tax which violates constitutional guarantees (emphasis supplied). Breck relies principally upon Commissioner of Corporations & Taxation v. Ford Motor Co. 308 Mass. 558, where this court considered the minimum excise on each of a class of foreign business corporations, imposed by G.L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 63, § 39C, [15] amounting to one twentieth of one per cent of ... gross receipts from business assignable to this commonwealth as defined in § 38, par. 6. Such gross receipts assignable to Massachusetts are thus used in the Ford case directly as the measure of the excise imposed by § 39C rather than as a means of allocation of net income as in the case of the excises imposed by § 32 and § 39. [16] To have construed § 38, par. 6, as including (for the purpose of § 39C), as receipts assignable to Massachusetts, gross receipts from interstate sales negotiated through a Massachusetts office would have involved measuring directly by gross receipts from interstate commerce an excise on a foreign corporation, for the privilege of doing intrastate business in Massachusetts. This court, in the Ford case, held (at page 568) that a State may not put a direct and immediate burden upon interstate commerce in the form of a tax, without apportionment, upon the gross proceeds derived from such commerce and (at page 569) may not exact an excise not apportioned to intrastate activities but measured by a percentage of the entire gross receipts derived from commercial activities extending beyond the boundaries of the taxing State (emphasis supplied). The decision thus held that § 38, par. 6, could not be applied, to the full extent warranted by its language, to bring any interstate business within the Ford company's gross receipts assignable to Massachusetts for the purposes of the minimum excise imposed by § 39C, because cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States (see pages 568-569) determined that a tax like that in § 39C, directly measured by gross receipts, would impose an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce. This court in the Ford case did not pass upon the validity of assigning to Massachusetts, in accordance with the plain language of § 38, par. 6, gross receipts from sales negotiated through a Massachusetts office for the wholly different purpose of allocating a fair proportion of net income to Massachusetts as a measure of an excise under § 32 upon a domestic [17] corporation. In this state of the authorities, we construe § 38, par. 6 (as applied, for purposes of the excise imposed by § 32, to the allocation to Massachusetts of a share of the net income of a domestic corporation), first, to require including in gross receipts ... assignable to Massachusetts under paragraph 6 the gross receipts from all sales which are not attributable to efforts closely associated with a corporate sales office outside of Massachusetts, and, second, to attribute receipts from sales, in either interstate or intrastate commerce, to the sales offices with which the salesmen effecting them are affiliated. Of course, if § 38, par. 6, thus construed, will operate to impose an unconstitutional burden in a particular case, it can be given only the maximum scope which will still leave its application within constitutional limits, but we think that the legislative intention was to apply the section literally to the full extent permitted by constitutional principles. See W. & J. Sloane v. Commonwealth, 253 Mass. 529, 529, 534; Dexter v. Commissioner of Corporations & Taxation, 316 Mass. 31, 70. Upon this construction of the allocation formula, the question of fact under the statute to be determined by the Appellate Tax Board was whether the gross receipts from sales (in amount [b] $155,289.87 and [c] $3,101,533.66), which Breck contends were wrongly assigned under § 38, par. 6, to Massachusetts, were negotiated by agents chiefly situated at, connected with or sent out from [corporate] premises ... outside Massachusetts. The board has not made express findings on this matter. However, in the absence of anything contrary to the concession of counsel on this matter, it is apparent that the board acted upon the basis that the sales involved in items (b) and (c) were made by salesmen who (in the language of the concession of counsel) if connected anywhere are connected with the Massachusetts office. No other conclusion would be warranted by the evidence, which showed, among other things, that, with respect to the disputed sales, reports which were necessary were made by the salesmen to the Massachusetts office, which in turn gave them necessary instructions. Accordingly, we deal with the case as one in which Breck has not sustained the burden resting upon it of showing that the disputed sales in items (b) and (c) were negotiated by salesmen chiefly connected with a sales office outside Massachusetts. 2. We must also pass upon the constitutional issues raised by Breck in view of the fact that the Appellate Tax Board has ruled that no gross receipts from interstate sales carried out by shipments originating in Massachusetts may be allocated to Massachusetts for the purposes of the formula for the apportionment of net income contained in §§ 37 and 38. If this ruling is correct, the decision of the board must be sustained. Under the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, real doubt [18] continues to exist about the limits of proper State taxation of corporations engaged in both intrastate and interstate commerce. See Freeman v. Hewit, 329 U.S. 249, 252. Compare Opinion of the Justices, 332 Mass. 785, 789. However, certain principles have been established which are binding upon us. (A) A State may not impose an excise (even one which does not discriminate against interstate commerce), at least upon a foreign corporation, [19] for the privilege of doing exclusively an interstate business within its borders. Cheney Brothers Co. v. Massachusetts, 246 U.S. 147, 153. Alpha Portland Cement Co. v. Massachusetts, 268 U.S. 203. Spector Motor Service, Inc. v. O'Connor, 340 U.S. 602, 609. [20] See also Crew Levick Co. v. Pennsylvania, 245 U.S. 292; Ozark Pipe Line Corp. v. Monier, 266 U.S. 555. This principle does not apply to the present case because Breck (1) is a Massachusetts corporation maintaining its corporate existence here; (2) does all its manufacturing in Massachusetts as an intrastate activity; and (3) carries on substantial intrastate sales in Massachusetts, as well as many important functions of a local character in administering all its sales operations. (B) A State occupation tax measured directly by the gross receipts from interstate commerce, unapportioned, is invalid, at least where the privilege of engaging in the occupation, including interstate commerce, is the subject of the tax. Fisher's Blend Station, Inc. v. State Tax Commission, 297 U.S. 650. Puget Sound Stevedoring Co. v. State Tax Commission, 302 U.S. 90, 92-94 (but compare pages 94-95). [21] Michigan-Wisconsin Pipe Line Co. v. Calvert, 347 U.S. 157, 166 (tax at a fixed rate per unit of gas on the occupation of gathering gas for the purpose of immediate interstate shipment held invalid). See Memphis Steam Laundry Cleaner, Inc. v. Stone, 342 U.S. 389, 392-393. See also Nippert v. Richmond, 327 U.S. 416. Compare Memphis Natural Gas Co. v. Stone, 335 U.S. 80, 89. Compare also American Manuf. Co. v. St. Louis, 250 U.S. 459, 463 (sustaining a license tax on manufacturing in St. Louis measured by value of manufactured goods sold, payable after value established by sale). (C) A State may not tax directly sales or the gross receipts from sales in interstate commerce, at least without apportionment, or unless the taxable event is one which is adequately separated from the actual movement in interstate commerce. Freeman v. Hewit, 329 U.S. 249 [22] (where the court held that an Indiana tax on gross income could not be imposed upon the gross proceeds of the sale of securities in New York). Compare International Harvester Co. v. Department of Treasury, 322 U.S. 340, 348 (Indiana gross income tax upheld with respect to proceeds of certain sales having important incidents in Indiana). In the present case the excise is not imposed with respect to any activity which is part of the stream of interstate commerce, but rather is laid on the existence of the corporate privileges. Also, as has already been said, the Massachusetts excise on Breck is measured by net income, not gross income. Accordingly the principles mentioned in this paragraph (C) and in paragraph (B) above are not applicable here. (D) A State tax which discriminates against interstate commerce is invalid. Memphis Steam Laundry Cleaner, Inc. v. Stone, 342 U.S. 389, 394-395. West Point Wholesale Grocery Co. v. Opelika, 354 U.S. 390. Compare, however, Interstate Busses Corp. v. Blodgett, 276 U.S. 245, 251 (holding that a taxpayer complaining of discrimination against it and against interstate commerce must show that in actual practice the tax of which it complains in fact is discriminatory in economic effect). In the present case there is no indication whatsoever of discrimination against interstate commerce. The commission relies upon those decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in which it has been stated consistently, in substance, that a State tax (a) upon corporate net income or (b) upon a privilege granted by the taxing State, measured by corporate net income, reasonably apportioned to activities of the taxpayer within the taxing State, will not impose a direct or constitutionally objectionable burden upon interstate commerce even if income from interstate commerce is taken into account. In United States Glue Co. v. Oak Creek, 247 U.S. 321, the court considered a Wisconsin general income tax upon a Wisconsin corporation's net income including that derived from business transacted within Wisconsin, determined by an allocation formula (page 324). Within income assigned to Wisconsin were included (page 325) the taxpayer's receipts from goods sold to customers outside Wisconsin from its Wisconsin factory and from goods manufactured in Wisconsin shipped to sales branches outside Wisconsin and there sold, all presumably interstate commerce. The court said (at page 329) that the tax can not be deemed to be so direct a burden upon plaintiff's ... business as to amount to an unconstitutional interference with ... commerce among the States. It was measured not by the gross receipts, but by the net proceeds from this part of plaintiff's business, along with a like imposition upon its income derived from other sources, and in the same way that other corporations doing business within the State are taxed upon that proportion of their income derived from business transacted and property located within the State, whatever the nature of their business. In distinguishing the Crew Levick case (245 U.S. 292) the court said (at pages 328-329), The difference in effect between a tax measured by gross receipts and one measured by net income, recognized by our decisions, is ... substantial, and it affords a ... workable basis of distinction between a direct and immediate burden upon the business affected and a charge that is only indirect and incidental. A tax upon gross receipts affects each transaction in proportion to its magnitude and irrespective of whether it is profitable or otherwise.... A tax upon the net profits ... does not arise at all unless a gain is shown over and above expenses and losses.... Underwood Typewriter Co. v. Chamberlain, 254 U.S. 113, 118, involved a Connecticut tax upon or measured by the net income of domestic and foreign corporations earned from business carried on within Connecticut, ascertained by apportionment to determine such proportion of the whole net income, as the ... value of the ... tangible ... property within the State bears to the ... value of all the ... tangible ... property of the company. The tax (at pages 119-120) was sustained although the taxpayer's profits may have been derived in part, or indeed mainly, from interstate commerce. In Hump Hairpin Manuf. Co. v. Emmerson, 258 U.S. 290, 292-296, the court sustained a capital stock tax computed on the basis of the proportion of capital stock ... represented by property located and business transacted in ... Illinois, which proportion shall be determined by averaging the percentage of the total business ... transacted in Illinois with the percentage of the total tangible property in Illinois, essentially two of the three allocation factors, namely property and gross receipts, used in the Massachusetts excise (§§ 32, 37, 38) here in issue. Interstate sales (see pages 292, 294) through salesmen working out of an Illinois sales office were included in Illinois business for the purpose of the allocation formula. See, to the same effect, International Shoe Co. v. Shartel, 279 U.S. 429, 433; Western Cartridge Co. v. Emmerson, 281 U.S. 511, 514-515. See also West Publishing Co. v. McColgan, 27 Cal. (2d) 705, affirmed 328 U.S. 823, rehearing denied 329 U.S. 822. Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton, Ltd. v. State Tax Commission, 266 U.S. 271, applied a New York franchise tax, levied for the privilege of doing business in New York, and measured by net income, to a British corporation selling ale through branch offices in New York. Under the taxing statute a part of total net income was to be apportioned to New York in accordance with stated criteria, including (among others) tangible property and accounts receivable. The tax was sustained largely upon the authority of the Underwood Typewriter case. The court (at page 282) pointed out that the taxpayer carried on the unitary business of manufacturing and selling ... in which its profits were earned by a series of transactions beginning with the manufacture in England and ending in sales in New York and other places  the process of manufacturing resulting in no profits until it ends in sales and indicated that New York was justified in attributing (through the operation of the allocation formula) to itself a just proportion of the profits ... from such unitary business. See John Deere Plow Co. of Moline v. Franchise Tax Board, 38 Cal. (2d) 214, 221-225, 229-230, appeal dismissed for want of a substantial Federal question, 343 U.S. 939; North American Cement Corp. v. Graves, 269 N.Y. 507, affirmed 299 U.S. 517. As has been stated, Alpha Portland Cement Co. v. Massachusetts, 268 U.S. 203, condemned the Massachusetts excise imposed on foreign corporations by § 39, as applied to a foreign corporation engaged exclusively in interstate commerce here. However (at page 218) the court said, The local business of a foreign corporation may support an excise measured in any reasonable way [emphasis supplied], if neither interstate commerce nor property beyond the State is taxed, and referred to the Underwood Typewriter case with apparent approval. Matson Navigation Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 297 U.S. 441, 444, involved a California excise on each business corporation for the privilege of exercising its corporate franchises within California measured by its net income which had been applied to a California corporation engaged in intrastate, interstate, and foreign business. The court held that net income justly attributable to all classes of business done within the State may be used as the measure of a tax imposed to pay the State for the use therein of the corporate franchises granted by it (emphasis supplied). [23] A similar result was reached in Memphis Natural Gas Co. v. Beeler, 315 U.S. 649, 656, dealing with an excise, measured by the net earnings of the business as well as by the capital employed, imposed by Tennessee upon a foreign gas transmission company, viewed by the court as doing a partly intrastate business in Tennessee (see note 20, supra ). See also Butler Brothers v. McColgan, 315 U.S. 501, 506-508, approving an allocation formula, much like that used in Massachusetts, under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. International Harvester Co. v. Evatt, 329 U.S. 416, involved an Ohio franchise tax for the privilege of doing business in Ohio, as applied to a foreign corporation (see page 418) there operating two large factories, warehouses and retail stores, as well as factories, warehouses and stores in other States. The tax was measured by the value of the taxpayer's capital stock. One half was apportioned on the basis of a fraction (at pages 419-420) the numerator of which is the value of all the taxpayer's Ohio property, and the denominator of which is the total value of all its property.... The other half is multiplied by another fraction whose numerator is the total value of the `business done' in the State and whose denominator is country-wide business.... In the `business done' numerator ... [Ohio] included as a part of Ohio business an amount equal to the sales proceeds of a large part of the goods manufactured at ... [the] Ohio plants, no matter where the goods had been sold or delivered. A part of the measure of the tax is consequently an amount equal to the sales price of Ohio manufactured goods sold and delivered to customers in other states. [24] The court (at pages 420-423) upheld the excise, under both the commerce clause (art. 1, § 8) and the due process clause (Fourteenth Amendment) of the Federal Constitution, as a tax on intrastate activities legitimately measured by the value of the goods produced by the Ohio factories, saying (at page 421), Nor does the fact that a computation such as that under Ohio's law includes receipts from interstate sales affect the validity of a fair apportionment [citing, among others, the Hump Hairpin and Underwood Typewriter cases]. The court went on to say (pages 421-422) that it clearly appears ... that the whole purpose of the ... formula was to arrive, without undue complication, at a fair conclusion as to what was the value of the intrastate business for which its franchise was granted.... Plainly Ohio sought to tax only what she was entitled to tax, and there is nothing about application of the formula in this case that indicates a potentially unfair result under any circumstances.... [T]his Court has long realized the practical impossibility of a state's achieving a perfect apportionment of expansive, complex business activities... and has declared that `rough approximation rather than precision' is sufficient. In the Spector case (340 U.S. 602, 609-610. See note 20, supra ), although holding that a Connecticut excise could not be imposed on a foreign corporation with respect to the privilege of doing an exclusively interstate business in Connecticut, the court said, Our conclusion is not in conflict with the principle that, where a taxpayer is engaged both in intrastate and interstate commerce, a state may tax the privilege of carrying on intrastate business and, within reasonable limits, may compute the amount of the charge by applying the tax rate to a fair proportion of the taxpayer's business done within the state, including both interstate and intrastate [citing the International Harvester case, 329 U.S. 416, and the Atlantic Lumber case, 298 U.S. 553, involving the Massachusetts corporation excise]. In Commonwealth v. Bayuk Cigars, Inc. 345 Pa. 348, affirmed per curiam sub nomine Bayuk Cigars, Inc. v. Pennsylvania, 318 U.S. 746, the courts approved a Pennsylvania excise based upon a net income allocation formula bearing close resemblance to that contained in § 38, pars. 2, 6, under which gross receipts from sales were not to be allocated to another State, absent the existence and use (in negotiating the sales) of a formal out-of-State corporate office. The sales in issue in the Bayuk case (see 345 Pa. at pages 356-357) were made by salesmen supervised, directed and controlled by the home office in Philadelphia, from which ... they received their instructions ... [T]heir orders were ... shipped from ... Pennsylvania ... [T]he itinerant nature of their employment required them to be `constantly traveling ...' and ... they must be regarded as `not chiefly situated at, connected with, or sent out from, premises ... owned or rented by the corporation outside the Commonwealth'. Compare Commonwealth v. Continental Rubber Works, 347 Pa. 514. The Bayuk case (which wholly supports the excise upon Breck in the present case) establishes that, in a formula designed to allocate net income approximately, it is reasonable for a Legislature to assign gross receipts from sales to the formal corporate office having supervision over the salesmen who effect the sales. [25] These decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, as we understand them, sustain the constitutionality under the commerce clause of a State excise (like that in the present case) on a domestic corporation for possessing or exercising its corporate privileges, if measured by net income, apportioned, as in the present case, in a practical way (which need not by any means be precise) to give a reasonable and rough approximation of values attributable to the taxing State granting the privileges. The fact that net income from interstate transactions (and the value given to intrastate privileges by them) may be taken into account reasonably in the tax computations is immaterial. Accordingly, we hold that the Appellate Tax Board erred (a) in treating the tax complained of as in effect a tax measured by gross receipts from interstate commerce rather than as an excise using, as one of its measures, a part of the taxpayer's net income apportioned to Massachusetts on a basis which takes into account fairly the sales here in dispute, admittedly interstate transactions, and (b) in holding that gross receipts from interstate sales (not assignable to non-Massachusetts sales offices under § 38, par. 6) should not be taken into the Massachusetts numerator of the allocation fraction under § 38, par. 2 (c). Breck argues that the aggregate effect of the excise as assessed by the commission is so unreasonable, as applied to it, as to come within the principle of Hans Rees' Sons, Inc. v. North Carolina, 283 U.S. 123, 134, which held that in a particular instance North Carolina had applied a formula method, which, albeit fair on its face, operates so as to reach profits ... in no just sense attributable to transactions within North Carolina's jurisdiction. [26] No such showing of fact has been made here by Breck. Indeed, if the gross receipts from the disputed sales were to be excluded from the formula computation, it would result only in a reduction of the portion of Breck's 1952 net income assigned to Massachusetts from 71% to 57% (see note 8, supra ). There are no findings of fact by the Appellate Tax Board and no evidence on which could be based a ruling that an allocation to Massachusetts of 71% of net income (as required by the total effect of the statutory formula which must be viewed as a whole) necessarily resulted in overvaluation, by fourteen percentage points, of the aggregate intrastate privileges (including basic corporate existence and authority to do business, manufacture, home office supervision, maintenance of local sales office, supervision of salesmen, warehousing, shipping, and so forth) subject to tax. The burden is clearly on Breck to establish facts which show the impropriety of the statutory formula. See Butler Brothers v. McColgan, 315 U.S. 501, 506-508. Breck contends also that the assignment of the disputed sales to Massachusetts for the purposes of § 38, par. 6, will involve risk of double taxation of those sales, because under pertinent Supreme Court decisions (see, for example, McGoldrick v. Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. 309 U.S. 33; General Trading Co. v. State Tax Commission, 322 U.S. 335) the States of destination of the goods sold might be able to impose taxes upon their sale or use. The tax imposed by § 32 is not a sales tax or a use tax based upon gross receipts but an excise on corporate privileges based on a net income measure designed to reflect solely Massachusetts values. No other State can impose a tax on those privileges or values. See Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, 303 U.S. 250, 260. See also Memphis Natural Gas Co. v. Stone, 335 U.S. 80, 93-94, 96-97. Any minor overlapping of measures of net income, if any other State should impose a similar excise on comparable privileges of Breck to do business in that State, using a somewhat different (but similarly reasonable) net income apportionment formula, would be at most an inconsequential result of the honest state efforts to make apportionments of Massachusetts and such other State, intended to reach a fair approximation of the value of the respective privileges subjected to tax. Any inaccuracy would be well within the limits of action permitted to the States. International Harvester Co. v. Evatt, 329 U.S. 416, 422-423. Here there is no evidence of any potential duplication of tax burden which could raise doubt about the propriety of the excise. 3. Breck is not entitled to have any abatement of that part of its 1953 corporate excise measured by net income. The decision of the Appellate Tax Board is reversed and a decision for the State tax commission is to be entered. The State tax commission is to have costs of the appeal to this court. So ordered.