Court Opinion

ID: 9425332
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:23.824165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:54.803175
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
with whom Mr. Justice Rehnquist concurs, dissenting.
This is an amazing decision doing irreparable harm to the cause of States’ rights under the Twenty-first Amendment. That Amendment gives the States pervasive control over the “transportation . . . into [the] State . . . for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation” of its laws. The liquors cannot reach these federal enclaves unless they are transported into or across the State and they are obviously delivered and used within Mississippi.
*382Two of the posts are inland enclaves within the State. Two are on Mississippi’s coastline. But to reach the latter by water a vessel must enter Mississippi’s territorial waters. As we held in Skiriotes v. Florida, 313 U. S. 69, the territorial waters are part of the domain over which the coastal State has sovereignty. These shipments therefore constitute “transportation or importation into” Mississippi for “delivery . . . therein of intoxicating liquors” within the meaning of the Twenty-first Amendment. The power of the State to bar the transportation of liquor into the State certainly includes the power to manage its distribution within the State. Mississippi has done no more than that. So it seems clear to me that this is a classic example of the exercise of basic States’ rights under the Twenty-first Amendment.
Mississippi in her regulation of alcoholic beverages is a so-called monopoly State,1 like 17 other States. Some of these monopoly States make themselves the exclusive wholesaler 2 of liquor and wine and exclusive retailer as well. Mississippi only makes itself the exclusive wholesaler. The sales involved in this litigation are wholesale sales to clubs of members of the Armed Services on four federal bases in Mississippi, over two of which Mississippi and the United States have concurrent jurisdiction, the United States having exclusive jurisdiction over the other two.
Under Mississippi law these post exchanges and other facilities (hereafter post exchanges) may order liquor direct from the distiller or from the state commission. The Mississippi regulation provides, “All orders of such organizations shall bear the usual wholesale *383markup 3 in price but shall be exempt from all state taxes.” The wholesale markup on distilled spirits is 17% and on wine, 20%. If the purchase is made from the distiller, it remits the wholesale markup to the State. A distiller who fails or refuses to observe these conditions is deprived of the benefits of this state law and may be prosecuted.
This suit brought before a three-judge district court was to collect the amount of the markups paid by the post exchanges and to enjoin the enforcement of the Mississippi regulation against distillers or suppliers doing business with the post exchanges on the terms of Mississippi law. The three-judge District Court, relying on the Twenty-first Amendment,4 gave appellees a summary judgment, 340 F. Supp. 903. Its judgment should be affirmed.
The four federal enclaves involved in this dispute are in the State of Mississippi. The spirits are made out of State and delivered to the post exchanges within the State. The question is whether the terms of the Twenty-first Amendment are met, that is to say, whether there is “transportation . . . into . . . [the] State ... for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors.”
The spirits are not all consumed on or at the post exchanges. Rather, they are resold to members of the Armed Services, to retired members and the families of members; and some of the spirits are consumed in Mississippi and outside the federal enclaves by guests of *384members and retirees and their families. As the District Court said, the spirits are not brought into the federal enclaves for sole use there. The spirits are resold to individuals for their use or consumption either on the federal enclave or in the surrounding state area.
Private retailers in Mississippi pay the State a tax of $2.50 a gallon on distilled spirits. The Post Exchanges pay no state tax on their resales; and it is stipulated that these post exchanges each make a profit.
Section 6 of the Universal Military Training and Service Act, as amended in 1951, authorizes the Secretary of Defense to make regulations “governing the sale, consumption, possession of or traffic in . . . intoxicating liquors to or by members” of the Armed Forces “at or near any camp, station, post, or other place primarily occupied by [them].” 50 U. S. C. App. §473. And it makes criminal, knowing violations of such regulations. Department of Defense Directive 1330.15 issued May 4, 1964, and amended June 9, 1966, provides that “the purchase of all alcoholic beverages for resale at any camp, post, station, base or other place primarily occupied by members of the Armed Forces within the United States shall be in such a manner and under such conditions as shall obtain for the Government the most advantageous contract, price and other factors considered.” The Act and the Department of Defense regulation do not on their face purport to override or displace state price control of liquor. It is said, however, that that is immaterial.
The Solicitor General relies on Art. I, § 8, cl. 17, of the Constitution, which empowers Congress to “exercise exclusive Legislation . . . over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings.” This provision, it is said, bars state price regulations as respects sales to post exchanges on the two federal enclaves *385over which the United States has exclusive jurisdiction even in absence of a conflicting federal statute or regulation. Reliance is placed on Paul v. United States, 371 U. S. 245, 263-268. The Paul case did not involve the Twenty-first Amendment. There post exchanges resold milk and California provided minimum wholesale price regulations; and we held that Art. I, § 8, cl. 17, “by its own weight, bars state regulation without specific congressional action.” Id., at 263.
The Twenty-first Amendment and Art. I, § 8, cl. 17, are parts of the same Constitution. In Hostetter v. Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp., 377 U. S. 324, we held that while the Twenty-first Amendment gave the States control where otherwise the Commerce Clause would be a bar to its action (id., at 330), the Twenty-first Amendment did not give a State the power to prohibit the passage of liquor through its territory for delivery to consumers in foreign countries. Congress had enacted a law governing traffic in liquor to foreign nations; and that aspect of the Commerce Clause gave Congress exclusive authority over foreign trade. Hence it is argued here that the power of Congress to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over a federal enclave pre-empts state power. But all that we have here is “transportation” into a State, not beyond it.
Collins v. Yosemite Park & Curry Co., 304 U. S. 518, held as respects a state regulatory regime of alcoholic beverages within Yosemite National Park in California that the Twenty-first Amendment gave the State no power to supervise liquor transactions within the federal enclave. The Court said:
“As territorial jurisdiction over the Park was in the United States, the State could not legislate for the area merely on account of the XXI Amendment. There was no transportation into California 'for delivery or use therein.’ The delivery and use is *386in the Park, and under a distinct sovereignty. Where exclusive jurisdiction is in the United States, without power in the State to regulate alcoholic beverages, the XXI Amendment is not applicable.” Id., at 538.
That observation was apt, for California undertook to assert a regulatory authority within the park. The Solicitor General presses for an application of Collins to the present post exchanges. Yet Mississippi asserts no regulatory power over these military bases or over the dispensing of liquor by the post exchanges. Mississippi only collects a tax from out-of-state distillers and suppliers who ship liquor to the post exchanges. Those shipments, as noted, must enter Mississippi to reach the military bases.
Moreover, Mississippi asserts no authority to collect the tax from the Federal Government or its instrumen-talities, the post exchanges. The legal incidence of the so-called sales tax is on the distributor only. The economic incidence is, of course, on the post exchanges. But it has long been held that there is no constitutional barrier to that result.
That raises the other phase of the case which should be decided here, as it is covered by our decisions and requires no additional factfindings for its resolution.
At least since Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1, state taxes have been upheld on those doing business with the Federal Government even as respects cost-plus contracts where the terms of the contract forced their payment out of the federal treasury.5 The principle of *387King & Boozer permits no exception for distillers who make wholesale transactions with post exchanges, as the legal incidence of the tax is on the distillers, not on the *388post exchanges. Moreover, the Buck Act, 54 Stat. 1059, now 4 U. S. C. § 105 et seg., authorizes the application of state sales and use taxes to all post exchange purchases where “the sale or use, with respect to which such tax is levied, occurred in whole or in part within a Federal area.” The Buck Act exempts from such taxes, sales, purchases, storage, or use of personal property sold by the United States or any instrumentality thereof to “any authorized purchaser” (§ 107), who is defined as one permitted to purchase at commissaries, ship’s stores, post exchanges, and the like, by regulations of the departmental Secretary.
It also does not authorize “the levy or collection of any tax on or from the United States or any instrumentality thereof.” 4 U. S. C. § 107 (a).
The markup which the State requires wholesalers of liquor to make is in its worst light a sales tax. There is no “levy or collection” by the State from a post exchange in any technical, legal sense. As noted, the economic but not the legal incidence of the tax is in the post exchanges. The post exchange is merely paying indirectly the cost of doing business in the manner in which King & Boozer held that there was no constitutional immunity from state taxation.
That alone is sufficient to distinguish the present case from Paul v. United States, 371 U. S. 245, where state minimum price regulations were held to be inoperative as applied to purchases of milk by federal instrumentalities, such as post exchanges. Paul in other words involved no tax at all. The levy of Mississippi on wholesalers is, as noted, a sum designed to cover the cost to the State of operating the wholesale liquor business, yield a reasonable profit, and be competitive with liquor prices in *389neighboring States. It is plainly, therefore, a tax on sales and in my view authorized by Congress under the Buck Act. The Solicitor General concedes in his brief that the Mississippi regulation is meant only "to raise revenue.” By reason of the Buck Act it matters not, therefore, that the post exchanges, as held in Paul, are federal instrumentalities. Here, as in King & Boozer, we deal only with the “economic” burden of the local tax, its legal incidence being solely on the distributor.
First Agricultural National Bank v. State Tax Comm’n, 392 U. S. 339, is inapposite. In that case Congress had specifically provided four ways in which the States could tax national banks, apart from taxes on their real estate. Id., at 341-342. Efforts to allow broader taxation were defeated in Congress. Because of that history, we read the Massachusetts sales tax closely and noting that the tax was “ 'recoverable at law’ ” from the national bank, id., at 347, held that it transcended the congressional waiver of immunity.
That case does not control here for two reasons.
First, the legal incidence of the present tax is not in the post exchanges, only the economic incidence.
Second, the Massachusetts sales tax had no relation to the Twenty-first Amendment. The present case involves "transportation or importation” of liquor into the State of Mississippi over which the State has plenary control. The State, having the power to bar liquor completely from Mississippi, can admit it on such terms and conditions as she chooses. If she sought to levy a tax on the post exchanges a different issue would arise. But there is no federal immunity against including state costs in federal contracts.
While the Buck Act by § 107 (a) bars a state tax on federal instrumentalities — which as Paul holds includes post exchanges — King & Boozer allows a state tax on those who, like the wholesalers in this case, do business with the United States. King & Boozer, decided in 1941, *390after the Buck Act, stated the modern version of the scope of intergovernmental immunity.6 The present case is therefore on all fours with the excise tax imposed by Florida on milk distributors who in turn sold to federal enclaves. In referring to the Buck Act we said:
“We think this provision provides ample basis for Florida to levy a tax measured by the amount of milk Polar distributes monthly, including milk sold to the United States for use on federal enclaves in Florida.” Polar Ice Cream & Creamery Co. v. Andrews, 375 U. S. 361, 383.
The judgment below should be affirmed.

 Miss. Code Ann. § 10265-01 et seq. (Supp. 1972).

 Wholesaler is defined as “any person, other than a manufacturer, engaged in distributing or selling any alcoholic beverage at wholesale for delivery within or without this State when such sale is for the purpose of resale by the purchaser.” Id., §10265-05 (g).

 The Act provides in § 10265-106, "The Commission shall add to the cost of all alcoholic beverages such various markups as in its discretion will be adequate to cover the cost of operation of the State wholesale liquor business, yield a reasonable profit, and be competitive with liquor prices in neighboring states.”

 It provides in § 2, “The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the law thereof, is hereby prohibited.”

 In New York v. United States, 326 U. S. 572, in discussing the Federal Government's right to levy taxes on New York State’s sale of mineral waters, the Court stated, “In the older cases, the emphasis was on immunity from taxation. The whole tendency of recent cases reveals a shift in emphasis to that of limitation upon immunity. They also indicate an awareness of the limited role of *387courts in assessing the relative weight of the factors upon which immunity is based.” Id., at 581.
That trend continued in Esso Standard Oil Co., v. Evans, 345 U. S. 495, where the Court upheld the validity of a state privilege tax on Esso, occasioned by its storage of gasoline owned by the United States, even though it was shown that the United States had contractually obligated itself to reimburse the contractor for any state tax liability incurred. The Court distinguished those cases which had held that there could be no state tax on federally owned property by indicating that in Esso the tax was on the privilege of storing Government property.
United States v. City of Detroit, 355 U. S. 466, and United States v. Muskegon, 355 U. S. 484, concerned the application of a 1953 Michigan statute providing that when tax-exempt real property is used by a private person in a business conducted for profit the private person is subject to taxation to the same extent as if he were the owner of the property. Both cases involved Government contractors occupying defense plants, one under a lease and the other under a permit which could be terminated at will. The Court upheld the imposition of the tax, saying the constitutional immunity of the Federal Government from state taxation was not violated and that the state statute was not discriminatory nor was the statute dis-criminatorily administered. This result was reached notwithstanding the fact that the Federal Government had for years reimbursed its contractors for the costs of possessory interest taxes.
In City of Detroit v. Murray Cory., 355 U. S. 489, the Court upheld a tax imposed on Murray, an Air Force subcontractor, on the basis of work in process and inventory, title to which was in the Federal Government on the tax day. The Court found no constitutional impediment to permitting a possessory-interest tax on Government-owned personal property. Unlike the real property situation, the Michigan statute did not specifically authorize such tax, but it was imposed pursuant to the usual personal property tax statute, levying the tax on the property. In commenting on the disparity between the statutes, the Court stated, “It is true that the particular Michigan taxing statutes involved here do not expressly state that the person in possession is taxed ‘for the privilege of using or possessing’ personal property, but to strike down a tax on the possessor because of such a verbal omission would only prove a victory for empty *388formalisms. And empty formalisms are too shadowy a basis for invalidating state tax laws. ... In the circumstances of this case the State could obviate such grounds for invalidity by merely adding a few words to its statutes.” Id., at 493.

 During the first third of this century the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity, as it applies to state taxation of allegedly federal governmental activities, went through a highly expansive phase. Among the taxes held invalid were the following: sales tax on articles sold to the Government, Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi, 277 U. S. 218; income tax on earnings from patents and copyrights, Long v. Roclcwood, 277 U. S. 142; income tax on income derived by lessees of public lands, Gillespie v. Oklahoma, 257 U. S. 501.
At the same time, however, a number of inroads or qualifications on the doctrine were established. Among the taxes held valid were the following: corporate franchise tax measured by income including that from Government bonds, Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., 220 U. S. 107; inheritance or estate tax measured in part by Government bonds, Plummer v. Coler, 178 U. S. 115: income tax on capital gain on resale of Government bonds, Willcuts v. Bunn, 282 U. S. 216; income tax on net income of contractors with the Government, Metcalf & Eddy v. Mitchell, 269 U. S. 514. This trend culminated in the decision of the Court in Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1.
That trend led a commentator to note, “Today, the United States conducts much of its business through a vast number of private parties. The trend in the U. S. Supreme Court has been to reject immunizing these private parties from non-discriminatory state taxes, as a matter of constitutional law, even though the United States bears the economic brunt of the tax, indirectly in some instances, by inclusion in price, and more directly in many instances, by reimbursement to the contractor as an item of cost.” Rollman, Recent Developments in Sovereign Immunity of the Federal Government from State and Local Taxes, 38 N. D. L. Rev. 26, 30.