Court Opinion

ID: 9418890
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:42:16.556255+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:02:33.319590
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Cardozo,
dissenting.
Under the Alabama statute, the appellee, the Texas Company, is a “storer.” It is one “who ships or causes to be shipped- or receives, gasoline into this State in any quantities, and stores the same in any manner and withdraws or uses the same for any purpose.” If it did business in some other way, it might be taxable as a “distributor,” or “refiner,” or “retail dealer.” Doing business as it does, it is taxable as a “storer.” It brings into Alabama a dangerous commodity which it keeps there indefinitely for indefinite uses. For the privilege of doing this it must make a payment to the state upon the termination of the storage, whether the purpose of the withdrawal is sale or something else. The statute was amended by adding the word “storing” in order to cover *405such activities. What the lawmakers have put into a statute, a court may not take out of it.
In its application to appellee, a tax thus conditioned is an excise upon the privilege of storage, and so the cases hold. State v. Montgomery, 228 Ala. 93; 151 So. 856; Ervin v. Alabama, 80 F. (2d) 432, 433; Pan American Petroleum Corp. v. Alabama, 67 F. (2d) 590. It is not transformed into a tax upon something else, or, more particularly, into a tax upon the privilege of sale, because payable when the gasoline is taken out of storage or because measured by the amount withdrawn. Edelman v. Boeing Air Transport, Inc., 289 U. S. 249, 252; Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249, 268; Ervin v. Alabama, supra; Pan American Petroleum Corp. v. Alabama, supra; State v. Montgomery, supra. The nature of the excise being what it is, liability is the same whether withdrawal of the gasoline is for one purpose or another.
Panhandle Oil Co. v. Knox, 277 U. S. 218, is not a decision to the contrary. The tax considered in that case and condemned when applied to transactions with the government was upon the privilege of sale exclusively, and- not upon some activity or condition antecedent thereto. The decision evoked dissent from four members of the court. It is now carried to new bounds by the ruling that “a tax upon anything so essential to the sale of the gasoline to the United States [as storage followed by withdrawal] is as objectionable as would be a tax upon the sale itself,” If that ruling is to stand, it will equally forbid a tax upon the process of refining or upon transportation to a market (Wheeler Lumber B. & S. Co. v. United States, 281 U. S. 572), since these, as much as storage, are preliminary to sale. Cf. Edelman v. Boeing Air Transport, Inc., supra; Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Wallace, supra. Not yet has the *406immunity of government from indirect obstructions been pushed to that extreme.
Gasoline refined in Texas find transported to Alábama to be stored in tanks or terminals is there for general uses. Part of it in the usual course of business will be sold to the United States; part of it will be sold to others; part will be withdrawn, without sale to anyone. This is not to say that the result would be any different though a definite, sale were in view at the beginning of, the storage. Even in such conditions, storage, like, transportation, would be “not part of the sale but preliminary to it and wholly the vendor’s affair.” Wheeler Lumber, B. & S. Co. v. United States, supra, at p. 579. However, the indefinite extension of the uses simplifies the problem. . The burden, if any, upon the activities of government is remote and indeterminate. Metcalf & Eddy v. Mitchell, 269 U. S. 514; Burnet v. A. T. Jergins Trust, 288 U. S. 508; Trinityfarm Construction Co. v. Grosjean, 291 U. S. 466. Sales to the United States are made under contracts for a stated term. There is no assurance that the tax or any part of it will be shifted to the buyer.
The decree should be reversed and the bill dismissed.
I am authorized to state that Me. Justice Brandéis joins in this opinion.