Court Opinion

ID: 9420869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:56:12.165286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:27.381707
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Reed,
with whom The Chief Justice joins,
concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the conclusion reached by the Court. In Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Tax Commission, 297 U. S. 403, it was held that “No decision of this Court lends support to the proposition that an occupation *581tax upon local business, otherwise valid, must be held void merely because the local and interstate branches are for some reason inseparable.” Page 415. Cf. Sprout v. South Bend, 277 U. S. 163, 171; Pullman Co. v. Adams, 189 U. S. 420.
The Chicago “carters tax” is strictly an occupational tax for carrying goods within the City. City of Chicago v. Willett Co., 406 Ill. 286, 290, 94 N. E. 2d 195, 198. I do not think that New York Central R. Co. v. Miller, 202 U. S. 584, is a precedent to uphold such a tax as this on the ground that the taxpayer is a corporation of the taxing state and doing business in Chicago. The tax in the Miller case was measured by the capital employed in the state. All railroad cars of the taxpayer except those outside the state “during the whole tax year” were included in the measure. Page 595. The validity to so tax turned on the railroad’s failure to show, by some form of apportionment, taxability in other states. Page 597. I find nothing in the conclusion and judgment of the Court in Northwest Airlines v. Minnesota, 322 U. S. 292, that would make the Miller case applicable to this situation, even if the “conclusion” were an opinion of this Court. If I understand the Court’s present opinion correctly, it decides that this occupation tax is valid merely because the taxpayer is an Illinois corporation with its business home in Chicago, the taxing body. The facts that it is an Illinois corporation and that its trucks are sometimes out of the state are not controlling. The corporation is taxable because it does intrastate business on the streets of Chicago.
Whether the tax is expressly declared to be for the use of the highways or for other state services or protection rendered interstate business is immaterial. This is a charge obviously for the use of the highways of the City by the carters and therefore valid. See Union Broker*582age Co. v. Jensen, 322 U. S. 202, 211-212; Southern Gas Corp. v. Alabama, 301 U. S. 148, 153; and Caskey Baking Co. v. Virginia, 313 U. S. 117, 119.