Court Opinion

ID: 9564413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:00:02.523528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:23.735780
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I concur in the judgment of reversal, and agree generally with the views expressed in the opinion prepared by the Chief Justice, but I do not believe it is material whether the cooperative marketing association was the agent of plaintiff or was an independent contractor. Assuming the agency relationship existed between plaintiff and the cooperative, the facts remain that plaintiff’s income was derived from products produced in California and sold by an agent operating in California. The agent-cooperative dealt with brokers and factors outside the state. It did not do any business in other states. The sales in various places did not constitute doing business in those places by the agent or by plaintiff within the meaning of the taxing statute. In those instances in which the cooperative had agents in other states, as distinguished from independent brokers, who were engaged in selling the products delivered to the cooperative, it is vital to note that these agents had no places of business in the other states and were in no different category from soliciting or selling agents operating outside of California. The activity of such agents, assuming they were also the agents of plaintiff, did not constitute doing business in those states within the meaning of the tax statute. In Montag Bros. v. State Revenue Commission of Georgia, 50 Ga.App. 660 [179 S.E. 563], a statute and situation similar to that involved in the instant case was considered, and in holding the income taxable, the Supreme Court of Georgia stated at page 566 [179 S.E.]:
“The tax being thus imposed upon the ‘net income from property owned’ in the state as well as ‘from business done’ in the state, where, as under the stipulated facts of this case, a domesticated corporation maintained its only office and place *170of business in this state, owned and manufactured all its goods therein, and received therein all the proceeds from its sales made within and without the state, all from its state-owned plants and products manufactured in this state, and all from its state-owned property and state-managed business and office, from which it merely sent out samples and operated a subordinate sale office with office equipment and salesmen out of the state under the control of its state office and an executive living within the state, its entire net income from these sales would be subject to the tax, whether it be deemed a resident corporation, or a non-resident corporation with the right of invoking the inhibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, since neither the imposition by the statute nor the collection of such a tax would contravene that amendment. The fact that part of the sales were made in interstate commerce, or that the title to some of the goods may have passed to purchasers outside the state, or even that some of the sale contracts might be taken as made outside the state (construing in favor of the taxpayer the ambiguous stipulation in regard to the time and place of ‘confirmation’ and the closing of sales), would not relieve the seller from tax upon the net earnings from such sales, where the manufacturing plant was located, the products were manufactured and owned, the shipments and payments were made, and every important step connected with the manufacture, distribution, sales, collection and earnings occurred, in Georgia.” (Italics added.) (182 Ga. 568 [186 S.E. 558]. See, also, Commonwealth v. Bayuk Cigars, 345 Pa. 348 [28 A.2d 134]; affd. 318 U.S. 746 [63 S.Ct. 991, 87 L.Ed. 1123].)
It seems clear to me that the income derived from the out of state sales in the instant case constituted income from business transacted in this state within the purview of the tax statute, and was therefore properly taken into consideration in computing the franchise tax payable by plaintiff.