Court Opinion

ID: 9535793
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:44:15.785999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:20.336265
License: Public Domain

GARRARD, Judge,
dissenting.
While I agree with the majority view that it was error to grant a larger exemption than that properly claimed by Stana-dyne, I feel I must dissent to the grant of the exemption.
The majority acknowledges that exemptions from taxation are not favored and should be strictly construed. Indiana Dept. of State Revenue v. The Boswell Oil Co. (1971), 148 Ind.App. 569, 268 N.E.2d 303.
As I understand the question posed by this litigation, the property was taxable unless imposition of the tax was forbidden by the Commerce Clause of the Constitution of the United States. More precisely, the question is whether the state could allowably determine that the property had come to rest sufficiently to interrupt its character of being in interstate commerce.
The majority quotes from State of Minnesota v. Blasius (1933), 290 U.S. 1, 54 S.Ct. 34, 78 L.Ed. 131. Yet in that case the Court held that the cattle received at the St. Paul stockyards were properly taxable.
That decision, together with the decisions in Independent Warehouses, Inc. v. Scheele (1947), 331 U.S. 70, 67 S.Ct. 1062, 91 L.Ed. 1346 and United States v. Great Lakes Pipe Line Co. (8th Cir. 1964), 328 F.2d 79 lead me to conclude that upon the facts before us the State of Indiana was not constitutionally prohibited from imposing a nondiscriminatory ad valorem property tax upon the goods in the warehouse. That being so, it was the duty of the trial court to sustain the tax despite the unquestionably interstate character of the ultimate sales.
I would therefore reverse the grant of exemption.