Court Opinion

ID: 9683667
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:34:51.723091+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:49.488881
License: Public Domain

Gailor, Justice
(concurring).
These cases would be controlled, and the propriety of the levy of the sales tax established, by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1, 62 S. Ct. 43, 86 L. Ed. 3, and Curry v. United States, 314 U. S. 14, 62 S. Ct. 48, 86 L. Ed. 9, except for the Act of Congress creating the Atomic Energy Commission and exempting it, its properties and activities, from State and local taxation in language which is all-inclusive, 42 U. S. C. A. Section 1809(b): “The Commission, and the property, activities, and income of the Commission, are hereby expressly exempted from taxation in any manner or form by any State, county, municipality, or any subdivision thereof.”
No question is made of the authority of the Congress to make the exemption from State and local taxation, and as I define the status of the Complainant operating corporations, Roane-Anderson Company, Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation, and Diamond Coal Mining Company, they are independent contractors who have authority to act as Purchasing Agents for the Atomic Energy Commission in carrying out the experimental projects at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
We have defined the Tennessee Sales Tax as a privilege tax upon retail sales, Hooten v. Carson, 186 Tenn. 282, 209 S. W. (2d) 273, to be paid by the purchaser, Code Section 1328.26, but if the purchaser, as a disclosed prin*177cipal, purchases through an agent, the tax is still upon the purchaser, who in the present case, has been exempted from payment of the tax by Act of Congress.
It is the Act of Congress and the all-inclusive exemption of the Atomic Energy Commission from all State and local taxation, that distinguishes the position of the contractors in the present case, from those in the Alabama cases cited, supra. In Alabama v. King-Boozer, supra, in the course of the opinion on page 1 of 314 U. S., on page 45 of 62 S. Ct. on page 6, of 86 L. Ed., it was stated: “Congress has declined to pass legislation immunizing from state taxation contractors under ‘cost-plus’ contracts for the construction of governmental projects.”
And in setting out the contract of the United States with the contractors, it was stated to be a term of the contract that the Government undertook to reimburse the contractors, . . for specified expenses including their expenditures for all supplies and materials and ‘state or local taxes . . . which the contractor may be required on account of his contract to pay’ 314 U. S. 1, 62 S. Ct. at page 46, 86 L. Ed. at page 7.
In the present case, as stated, the Congress in all-inclusive terms, has exempted the Atomic Energy Commission from the payment of all local and State taxation.
My reasons for agreeing with the conclusions reached in the opinion of Justice BubNett, are sufficiently clear from this statement, and no elaboration would serve any useful purpose.