Court Opinion

ID: 9428881
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:02.979949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:15.759634
License: Public Domain

Justice O’Connor,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the Court’s opinion insofar as it holds that the State may not charge out-of-state tuition to nonimmigrant aliens who, under federal law, are exempt from both state and federal taxes, and who are domiciled in the State. Imposition of out-of-state tuition on such aliens conflicts with federal law exempting them from state taxes, since, after all, the University admits that it seeks to charge the higher tuition in order to recover costs that state income taxes normally would cover.
I cannot join the remainder of the Court’s opinion, however, for it wholly fails to address the criticisms leveled in Justice Rehnquist’s dissenting opinion. As Justice Rehnquist makes clear, the class of G-4 aliens is not homogenous: some G-4 aliens are exempt under federal law from state taxes, while other G-4 aliens are not. Moreover, the legislative history of § 4(b) of the International Organizations Immunities Act, later reenacted as § 893 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. § 893, from which many G-4 *25aliens derive their federal tax immunity, demonstrates that Congress did not intend to exempt such aliens from state taxes, choosing instead to leave the matter to the state and local authorities. Thus, I disagree with the Court when it states that the “State may not recoup indirectly from respondents’ parents the taxes that the Federal Government has expressly barred the State from collecting,” ante, at 16, for in fact Congress has not barred the State from collecting state taxes from many G-4 aliens. Accordingly, I conclude that the Supremacy Clause does not prohibit the University from charging out-of-state tuition to those G-4 aliens who are exempted by federal law from federal taxes only.