Stanley Forman Reed

“ Such flight equipment is employed as a part of a system of interstate air commerce operating over fixed routes and landing on and departing from airports within Nebraska on regular schedules. Appellant does not challenge the reasonableness of the apportionment prescribed by the taxing statute or the application of such apportionment to its property. It contends only that its flight equipment used in interstate commerce is immune from taxation by Nebraska because without situs in that state and because regulation of air navigation by the Federal Government precludes such state taxation. ”

“ The provision pertinent to sovereignty over the navigable air space in the Air Commerce Act of 1926 was an assertion of exclusive national sovereignty. The convention between the United States and other nations respecting international civil aviation ratified August 6, 1946, 61 Stat. 1180, accords. The Act, however, did not expressly exclude the sovereign powers of the states. H.R.Rep.No. 572, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 10. The Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 gives no support to a different view. ”

“ All of the aircraft not undergoing overhaul fly regular schedules upon a circuit ranging from Minot, North Dakota, to New Orleans, Louisiana, with stops in fourteen states including Minnesota, Nebraska and Oklahoma. No stops were made in Delaware. The Nebraska stops are of short duration since utilized only for the discharge and loading of passengers, mail, express, and freight, and sometimes for refueling. Appellant neither owns nor maintains facilities for repairing, reconditioning, or storing its flight equipment in Nebraska, but rents depot space and hires other services as required. ”

“ The statute uses the allocation formula of the 'proposed uniform statute to provide for an equitable method of state taxation of air carriers' adopted by the Council of State Governments upon the recommendation of the National Association of Tax Administrators in 1947. [5] Use of a uniform allocation formula to apportion air-carrier taxes among the states follows the recommendation of the Civil Aeronautics Board in its report to Congress. [6] The Nebraska statute provides for reports, levy, and rate of tax by state average. ”

“ Mid-Continent had been incorporated in Delaware with its corporate place of business in Wilmington in that state, and Braniff is incorporated in Oklahoma and has its corporate place of business in Oklahoma City. ”