Court Opinion

ID: 9429123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:44.072676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:17.305979
License: Public Domain

Justice White,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
This case is not difficult. The exemption for the first $100,000 of paper and ink limits the burden of the Minnesota tax to only a few papers. This feature alone is sufficient reason to invalidate the Minnesota tax and reverse the judgment of the Minnesota Supreme Court. The Court recognizes that Minnesota’s tax violates the First Amendment for this reason, and I subscribe to Part V of the Court’s opinion and concur in the judgment.
Having found fully sufficient grounds for decision, the Court need go no further. The question whether Minnesota or another State may impose a use tax on paper and ink that is not targeted on a small group of newspapers could be left for another day.
The Court, however, undertakes the task today. The crux of the issue is whether Minnesota has justified imposing a use tax on paper and ink in lieu of applying its general sales tax to publications. The Court concludes that the State has offered no satisfactory explanation for selecting a substitute for a sales tax. Ante, at 587. If this is so, that could be the end of the matter, and the Minnesota tax would be invalid for a second reason.
The Court nevertheless moves on to opine that the State could not impose such a tax even if “the effective burden was no different from that on other taxpayers or the burden on the press was lighter than that on other businesses.” *594Ante, at 588. The fear is that the government might use the tax as a threatened sanction to achieve a censorial purpose. As Justice Rehnquist demonstrates, post, at 601-602, the proposition that the government threatens the First Amendment by favoring the press is most questionable, but for the sake of argument, I let it pass.
Despite having struck down the tax for three separate reasons, the Court is still not finished. “A second reason” to eschew inquiry into the relative burden of taxation is presented. The Court submits that “courts as institutions are poorly equipped to evaluate with precision the relative burdens of various methods of taxation,” ante, at 589, except, it seems, in cases involving the sovereign immunity of the United States. Why this is so is not made clear, and I do not agree that the courts are so incompetent to evaluate the burdens of taxation that we must decline the task in this case.
The Court acknowledges that in cases involving state taxation of the Federal Government and those with whom it does business, the Court has compared the burden of two different taxes. Ante, at 589, n. 12. See, e. g., United States v. County of Fresno, 429 U. S. 452 (1977); United States v. City of Detroit, 355 U. S. 466 (1958). It is not apparent to me why we are able to determine whether a State has imposed the economic incidence of a tax in a discriminatory fashion upon the Federal Government, but incompetent to determine whether a tax imposes discriminatory treatment upon the press. The Court’s rationale that these are a unique set of cases which nevertheless “force us” to assume a duty we are incompetent to perform is wholly unsatisfactory. If convinced of its inherent incapacity for tax analysis, the Court could have taken the path chosen today and simply prohibited the States from imposing a compensatory “equivalent” economic burden on those who deal with the Federal Government. It has not done so.
Moreover, the Court frequently has examined — without complaint — the actual effect of a tax in determining whether the State has imposed an impermissible burden on interstate *595commerce or run afoul of the Due Process Clause.1 In a number of cases concerning railroad taxes, for example, the Court considered the tax burden to decide whether it was the equivalent of a property tax or an invalid tax on interstate commerce.2 The Court has compared the burden of use taxes on competing products from sister States with that of sales taxes on products sold in-state to decide whether the former constituted discrimination against interstate commerce. Henneford v. Silas Mason Co., 300 U. S. 577 (1937).3 We have also measured tax burdens in our cases considering whether state tax formulas are so out of propor*596tion to the amount of in-state business as to violate due process. See, e. g., Moorman Mfg. Co. v. Bair, 437 U. S. 267 (1978); Hans Rees’ Sons, Inc. v. North Carolina, 283 U. S. 123 (1931). In sum, the Court’s professed inability to determine when a tax poses an actual threat to constitutional principles is a novel concept, and one belied by the lessons of our experience.
There may be cases, I recognize, where the Court cannot confidently ascertain whether a differential method of taxation imposes a greater burden upon the press than a generally applicable tax. In these circumstances, I too may be unwilling to entrust freedom of the press to uncertain economic proof. But, as Justice Rehnquist clearly shows, post, at 597-598, this is not such a case. Since it is plainly evident that Minneapolis Star is not disadvantaged and is almost certainly benefited by a use tax vis-á-vis a sales tax, I cannot agree that the First Amendment forbids a State to choose one method of taxation over another.

 See, e. g., Alaska v. Arctic Maid, 366 U. S. 199 (1961) (Alaska occupational tax collected from freezer ships at rate of 4% of value of salmon not discriminatory because Alaskan canneries pay a 6% tax on the value of salmon obtained for canning).

 See Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Missouri State Tax Comm’n, 390 U. S. 317, 329 (1968) (holding property tax on rolling stock based on a mileage formula violated due process) (“[W]hen a taxpayer comes forward with strong evidence tending to prove that the mileage formula will yield a grossly distorted result in a particular case, the State is obliged to counter that evidence . . .”); Great Northern R. Co.v. Minnesota, 278 U. S. 503, 509 (1929) (“We find nothing in the record to indicate that the tax under consideration, plus that already collected, exceeds ‘what would be legitimate as an ordinary tax on the property valued as part of a going concern, [or is] relatively higher than the taxes on other kinds of property.’ Pullman Co. v. Richardson, 261 U. S. 330, 339”). See also Pullman Co. v. Richardson, 261 U. S. 330, 339 (1923); Cudahy Packing Co. v. Minnesota, 246 U. S. 450, 453-455 (1918); United States Express Co. v. Minnesota, 223 U. S. 335 (1912); Galveston, H. & S. A. R. Co. v. Texas, 210 U. S. 217 (1908).

 In Henneford, a 2% tax was imposed on the privilege of using products coming from other States. Excepted from the tax was any property, the sale or use of which had already been subjected to an equal or greater tax. The Court, speaking through Justice Cardozo, upheld the use tax, noting that “[w]hen the account is made up, the stranger from afar is subject to no greater burdens as a consequence of ownership than the dweller within the gates.” 300 U. S., at 583-584. See also Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. v. Reily, 373 U. S. 64 (1963) (holding use tax burden went beyond sales tax and constituted invalid discriminatory burden on commerce); Scripto v. Carson, 362 U. S. 207 (1960) (upholding use tax as complement to sales tax).