Court Opinion

ID: 9547705
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:50:38.755632+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:57.917186
License: Public Domain

*20DISSENTING OPINION OF
MARUMOTO, J.
I respectfully dissent. My dissent is based on the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution.
In my opinion, the plain meaning of the following words in 49 U.S.C. § 1513(a):
No State ... shall levy or collect a tax ... on the sale of air transportation or on the gross receipts therefrom ...
prohibits the State of Hawaii from collecting the tax levied under HRS § 239-6, which is based on the gross income of the airlines involved in the instant cases.
U.S.C. § 1513(b) provides: “Nothing in this section shall prohibit a State .. . from the levy or collection of taxes other than those enumerated in subsection (a) of this section, including property taxes, ...”, and HRS § 239-6 provides: “The tax imposed by this section is a means of taxing the personal property of the airline or other carrier, tangible and intangible, including the going concern value, and is in lieu of the tax imposed by chapter 237 [General Excise Tax Law] but not in lieu of any other tax.”
I do not think that mere characterization of the tax as “a means of taxing the personal property of the airline or other carrier, tangible and intangible, including the going concern value,” changes the essential nature of the tax as a tax “on the sale of air transportation or on the gross receipts therefrom.”
At the present time, the State of Hawaii has no personal property tax as such, and there was none at the time HRS § 239-6 was enacted.
Under HRS § 239-6, the sole basis for determining the amount of the levy or collection is the gross income from the airline business. Such basis has no relationship to the value of the personal property used in the airline, tangible and intangible, including the going concern value.
Gross income of an airline is produced by a multitude of factors besides the personal property, tangible and intangible, used in the business.
In this connection, R.L.H. 1925 § Í320, quoted below in footnote *211, which was repealed in S.L.H. 1932 Second Special Session, Act 40, Section 72, is instructive.