Harlan F. Stone

“ If the state law lays the tax upon them rather than the individual with whom they enter into a cost-plus contract like the present one, then it affects the Government, like the individual, only as the economic burden is shifted to it through operation of the contract. ”

“ Upon the record as it comes to us we are not called upon to determine whether the taxing statute is applicable to transactions of the contractors on the camp site, a government reservation. We decide only the question passed upon by the Supreme Court of Alabama, that if the statute is applicable to and taxes the contractors upon a cost-plus contract like the present, if entered into with a private person, they are not immune from the tax when, as here, the contract is with the Government. ”