Harlan F. Stone

“ If the vendor must pay the tax whether or not he can recoup the amount from the purchaser, and the tax, as here, is assessed against the vendor, it would seem inadmissible to defend the tax upon the ground that it is a tax upon the purchaser. From any point of view, the tax now contested is laid upon interstate sales.
In confiding to Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, the aim was to provide a free national market,-to pull down and prevent the re-erection of state barriers to the free intercourse between the people of the States. ”

“ We have frequently decided that where a commodity is mined or manufactured in one State and in pursuance of contracts of sale is delivered for transportation to purchasers in another State, the mere fact that the sale is f.o.b. cars in the seller's State and the purchaser pays the freight does not make the sale other than interstate. [15] And when, as here, the buyer in an interstate sale takes delivery in his own State, that delivery in completion of the sale is as properly immune from state taxation as is the transportation to the purchaser's dock or vessel. ”

“ Petitioner's argument misses the point as to the danger of multiple taxation in relation to interstate commerce. The shipment, the transshipment and the delivery of the coal are but parts of a unitary interstate transaction. They are integral parts of an interstate sale. If, because of the delivery in New York, that State can tax the gross receipts from the sale, why cannot Pennsylvania by reason of the shipment of the coal in that State tax the gross receipts there? ”

“ If, as guides to decision we look to the purpose of the commerce clause to protect interstate commerce from discriminatory or destructive state action, and at the same time to the purpose of the state taxing power under which interstate commerce admittedly must bear its fair share of state tax burdens, and to the necessity of judicial reconciliation of these competing demands, we can find no adequate ground for saying that the present tax is a regulation which, in the absence of Congressional action the commerce clause forbids. ”

“ In relation to the present transaction, it would hardly be contended that New York could tax the transportation of the coal from Pennsylvania to New York or a contract for that transportation. But the movement of the coal from the one State to the other was definitely required by the contracts of sale and these sales must be regarded as an essential part of the commercial intercourse contemplated by the commerce clause. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat, 1, 188, 6 L.Ed. 23. The tax on the gross receipts of the seller from these sales was manifestly an imposition upon the sales themselves. ”

“ Each imposes a burden which intrastate commerce does not bear, and merely because interstate commerce is being done places it at a disadvantage in comparison with intrastate business or property in circumstances such that if the asserted power to tax were sustained, the states would be left free to exert it to the detriment of the national commerce. ”

“ That is equally the case with other goods sent from without the state to the New York market, whether they are brought into competition with like goods produced within the state or not. We are unable to say that the present tax, laid generally upon all sales to consumers within the state, subjects the commerce involved where the goods sold are brought from other states, to any greater burden or affects it more, in any economic or practical way, whether the purchase order or contract precedes or follows the interstate shipment. ”

“ Only in event that the seller fails to pay over to the city the tax collected or to charge and collect it as the statute requires, is the burden cast on him. It is conditioned upon events occurring within the state, either transfer of title or possession of the purchased property, or an agreement within the state, 'consummated' there, for the transfer of title, or possession. The duty of collecting the tax and paying it over to the Comptroller is imposed on the seller in addition to the duty imposed upon the buyer to pay the tax to the Comptroller when not so collected. ”

“ Certain types of tax may, if permitted at all, so readily be made the instrument of impeding or destroying interstate commerce as plainly to call for their condemnation as forbidden regulations. Such are the taxes already noted which are aimed at or discriminate against the commerce or impose a levy for the privilege of doing it, or tax interstate transportation or communication or their gross earnings, or levy an exaction on merchandise in the course of its interstate journey. ”

“ Respondent, a Pennsylvania corporation, is engaged in the production of coal of specified grades, said to possess unique qualities, from its mines within that state and in selling it to consumers and dealers. It maintains a sales office in New York City and sells annually to its customers, 1,500,000 tons of its product, of which approximately 1,300,000 tons are delivered by respondent to some twenty public utility and steamship companies. The coal moves by rail from mine to dock in Jersey City, thence in most instances by barge to the point of delivery. ”

“ The coal is transported from the mines by railroad to a pier in Jersey City where the seller's barges take the coal and bring it alongside the purchasers' plant or steamship where delivery is made, the purchasers doing the unloading. There were two purchasers who took delivery outside New York.
The tax is two per cent of the entire purchase price. The Court of Appeals has described the tax as 'two per cent upon receipts from every sale of tangible personal property sold within the city'. ”

“ In the case of products like cotton, citrus fruits and coal, not to mention many others which are consumed there in vast quantities, all have crossed the state line to seek a market, whether in fulfillment of a contract or not. ”

“ He observed that 'When a legislature is trying simply to value property, it is less likely to attempt or to effect injurious regulation than when it is aiming directly at the receipts from interstate commerce'. ”

“ License taxes requiring a corporation engaged in interstate commerce to pay a fee of a certain percentage of its capital stock have been rejected because of the danger that each state in which the corporation does business may impose a similar tax, measured by its interstate business in all, Western Union Tel. ”

“ Michigan, 121 U.S. 230, 7 S.Ct. 857, 30 L.Ed. 888; Philadelphia & S.M. Steamship Co. v. Pennsylvania, 122 U.S. 326, 7 S.Ct. 1118, 30 L.Ed. 1200; Leloup v. Mobile, 127 U.S. 640, 8 S.Ct. 1380, 32 L.Ed. 311; Galveston, H. & S.A.R. Co. v. ”

“ Santa Cruz Fruit Packing Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 303 U.S. 453, 463, 58 S.Ct. 656, 658, 82 L.Ed. 954.↑ Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123, 19 L.Ed. 382; Sonneborn Bros. v. Cureton, 262 U.S. 506, 515, 516, 43 S.Ct. 643, 646, 67 L.Ed. 1095; Wiloil Corporation v. Pennsylvania, 294 U.S. 169, 175, 55 S.Ct. ”

“ See Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123, 131, 19 L.Ed. 382; Brown v. Houston, 114 U.S. 622, 5 S.Ct. 1091, 29 L.Ed. 257; Galveston, H. & S.A.R. Co. v. Texas, 210 U.S. 217, 225, 227, 28 S.Ct. 638, 639, 640, 52 L.Ed. 1031; South Carolina Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Bros., supra; Ford Motor Co. v. ”