Court Opinion

ID: 9418642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:34:27.440989+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:07.261196
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice McReynolds.
I am unable to think that every man who sells a gallon of gasoline to be used by the United States thereby becomes a federal instrumentality, with the privilege of claiming freedom from’ taxation by the State.
The doctrine of immunity is well established, but it ought not to be extended beyond the reasons which underlie it. Its limitations were well pointed out fifty years ago in Railroad Company v. Peniston, 18 Wall. 5, 30, 31 — “ It cannot be that a State tax which remotely affects the efficient exercise of a Federal power is for that reason alone inhibited by the Constitution. To hold that would be to deny to the States all power to tax persons or property. Every tax levied by a State withdraws from the reach of Federal taxation a portion of the property *226from which it is taken, and to that extent diminishes the subject upon which Federal taxes may be laid. The States are, and they must ever be, coexistent with the National government. Neither may destroy the other. Hence the Federal Constitution must receive a practical construction. ' Its limitations and its implied prohibitions must not be extended so far as to destroy the necessary-powers of the States, or prevent their efficient exercise.’’
Mr. Justice Stone concurs in these views.