Court Opinion

ID: 7823151
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 18:01:02.130844+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:47.582457
License: Public Domain

George Rose Smith, Justice, concurring. The court’s opinion encourages the Commissioner of Revenues to think that the giving away of free samples by the appellee would be a taxable transaction if the Commissioner had bothered to show that it has some advertising value. The tax, however, is a percentage of the “gross proceeds or gross receipts” derived from the transfer of title or possession for a valuable consideration. Ark. Stat. Ann. §§ 84-1902(c) and -1903 (Repl. 1980). What is the advertising value derived from giving away the samples in question? Surely that value is too nebulous to be measured in dollars and cents when a dentist is free to discard the sample if he prefers another brand. The legislature knows how to tax a transaction of this kind. The sales tax expressly applies to free or complimentary tickets or passes to places of amusement and the like. The statute then declares that such tickets or passes have a value equal to the sale price of similar tickets or passes. § 84-1903 (e). The legislature, however, has not seen fit to tax the giving away of pharmaceutical samples. I do not think the courts should levy that tax.