Court Opinion

ID: 9757698
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:55:05.455775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:43.001426
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Cohen:
While I agree with the concurring opinion’s condemnation of the majority’s reasoning, I find myself at odds with both of those opinions.
There can be no doubt that both water and gas sold in metal or glass containers would be subject to the mercantile tax imposed by the School District of Pittsburgh. That gas and water are delivered by means of a pipeline rather than in containers does not change their fundamental characteristics and thereby remove the supplier from the purview of this tax.
I also know of no law or reason which would prevent the imposition of the mercantile license tax upon a public utility. The Act of June 20, 1947, P. L. 745, as amended and re-enacted by the Act of May 12, 1949, P. L. 1238, 24 PS §582.1, imposes a mercantile tax upon every entity engaged in the business of a wholesale or retail vendor or dealer in goods, wares and merchandise within a first class school district. This act does nob exempt public utilities from its imposition. On the other hand, the so-called “tax anything act” of June 25, 1947, P. L. 1145, 53 PS §6851, approved five days after *328the act herein under consideration, specifically exempted public utilities. Similarly, the Act of May 23, 1949, P. L. 1669, 24 PS §584.1, expressly exempted public utilities from the payment of the Temporary Tax on Receipts.
Thus, it should be readily recognized that the immunity of regulated public utilities from the payment of mercantile and business privilege taxation does not rest upon the immunity which the majority and concurring opinions seek to conjure, but is founded solely and exclusively upon a legislative mandate which is not present in the first class school district Mercantile Tax Act. The tax is neither a regulatory device, nor is it unique in the field of taxation — it is simply an ordinary revenue measure. As a tax upon all vendors and dealers in goods, wares and merchandise, it should be imposed upon all such vendors and dealers, including utilities, unless they are specifically exempted by legislative enactment. It might be that the failure to exempt utilities was an oversight. If so, it should be corrected by the legislature — not the court acting as such.
I dissent.