Stanley Forman Reed

“ The retail stores of the state are the natural outlets for merchandise, not those who sell only by sample. Some of these local shops may, like appellant, rent temporary display rooms in sections of North Carolina where they have no permanent store, but even these escape the tax at bar because the location of their central retail store somewhere within the state will qualify them as 'regular retail merchants in the State of North Carolina.' The only corresponding fixed-sum license tax to which appellant's real competitors are subject is a tax of $1 per annum for the privilege of doing business. ”

“ Interstate commerce can hardly survive in so hostile an atmosphere. A $250 investment in advance, required of out-of-state retailers but not of their real local competitors, can operate only to discourage and hinder the appearance of interstate commerce in the North Carolina retail market. Extrastate merchants would be compelled to turn over their North Carolina trade to regular local merchants selling by sample. North Carolina regular retail merchants would benefit, but to the same extent the commerce of the Nation would suffer discrimination. ”

“ Nonresidents wishing to display their wares must either establish themselves as regular North Carolina retail merchants at prohibitive expense, or else pay this $250 tax that bears no relation to actual or probable sales but must be paid in advance no matter how small the sales turn out to be. ”