Court Opinion

ID: 9866499
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 13:09:02.338512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:56.999256
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing. Appellee expresses fear that it did not sufficiently impress upon us, and that we did not sufficiently consider, the peculiar facts in the ease. It was stipulated that the purchase of gasoline in New Mexico is essential to appellee’s operations, and that included in the purchase price which appellee pays is as much as $7,200 per year on account of this tax. These facts, which we did not overlook, do not, in our judgment, affect the decision. Appellee now, for the first time, seeks to bring additional facts into the case as proper subjects of judicial notice. He points out that it is matter of common knowledge that a special high-test gasoline, not used for any other purpose, is required for the operation of aircraft. This might perhaps be judicially noticed. But appellee proceeds to construct upon it a fact situation not in the ease and which we are not at liberty to assume. He suggests that this case be deemed to involve special high-test gasoline, imported into the state by the dealer for sale to appellee alone, for use as an instrumentality of interstate commerce. Whether this situation would vary the decision we need not consider. It was not presented to the district court, nor was the injunction which appellee here seeks to sustain limited to it. The focus of appellee’s argument on the motion is upon the distinction we have sought to make between the use tax and the sales tax. That distinction failing, Helson v. Kentucky, supra, would control. It is urged that it is as necessary to appellee’s business to buy gasoline in New Mexico as to use it here; that it is of no more force to say that the statute does not require purchase in New Mexico than it would have been in the Helson Case to say that the statute did not require use in Kentucky; that a sales tax recognizable as specific, and admittedly passed on to the purchaser, imposes a direct burden within the meaning of the decisions, and is equivalent to a tax on the privilege of buying or the privilege of using; that either form of the tax has the same substantial result, operating as a burden upon the revenues or earnings of interstate commerce. It is urged that the sale for use, the purchase for use, and the use, in interstate commerce are inseparable parts of the same transaction, just as if the gasoline were purchased to be shipped outside the state as a commodity. It is urged finally that a business exclusively interstate must be exempt from any and all state excises, because in such case there is nq room for claiming that the business should “pay its way,” and, in effect, there is a taking of the earnings of interstate commerce with no quid pro quo. While we have fully considered these contentions, we doubt if it would be useful to express such further views as we may entertain of their soundness or force, separately or collectively. Another tribunal must finally establish the controlling precedent. We are strongly impressed that the use tax is distinguishable from the sales tax, not only in form, but in operation and effect. The obvious purpose of the use tax in this state is to supplement the sales tax, rendering it impossible legally to avoid the latter by purchasing out of the state for use in the state. Users of gasoline are required to report and pay the tax only on such gasoline as was not purchased from a licensed dealer. 1929 Comp. § 60-102. It is one thing to tax appellee for using, as an instrumentality of interstate commerce, its own property, upon which perchance it has already paid lawful excises imposed by other states. It is quite a different thing, we think, to tax the business of selling gasoline, which, by force of circumstances only, adds to the expense of appellee’s interstate business. Since this suit was instituted the Legislature has made provision for refunds to purchasers of gasoline for use otherwise than in motor vehicles operated on the highways. Laws 1931, c. 31. Appellee suggests that this may well be considered as a legislative construction of 1929 Comp. § 60-203, and as evincing legislative intent to exempt gasoline sold for aircraft use. The history of gasoline tax legislation in this state will not warrant such construction. The motion for rehearing will be denied. Pursuant to appellee’s request, judgment will be entered in this court. Unless counsel shall agree upon its terms, a date will be fixed for settling them. BICKLEY, C. J„ and PARKER, SADLER, and HUDSPETH, JJ., concur.