Gross receipts

“ Revenue Act 1916, § 2, 39 Stat. 757, 758; Revenue Act 1918, c. 18, 40 Stat. 1057. Ordinarily, at least, a taxpayer may not deduct from gross receipts a supposed loss which in fact is represented by his outstanding note. ”

“ Every such company is required to report its gross and net receipts; and a specific provision is made that, if its road is only in part within the commonwealth, the report shall show what part is so, and what proportion the same bears to its entire length, apportioning the receipts accordingly. ”

“ The state court holds that the tax is not a tax on gross receipts as such, but is in both name and essence a tax on property within the state, and that it is computed with reference to the gross receipts only as a means of adjusting it to the real value of the property in the relation in which the same is used. ”

“ To ascribe a going-concern value of over three million dollars to tangible property of $129.279 is on its face an extreme attribution. To base the value on appellant's gross revenues is to assume that every dollar of annual intake adds a dollar of intangible value to the company's assets regardless of how much it cost in labor, interest and other expense, including other taxes, to produce it. On the other hand, as a forthright tax on gross receipts, the tax involves no irrational or impractical assumption. ”

“ A telephone company which leased everything it used would release no property from taxation by paying the gross receipts tax, while the competitor with equal receipts, by paying the same amount, might absolve from local assessment property of very large value. ”

“ The gross receipts of most roads are made up chiefly of earnings from the carrying of freight and passengers, and a tax on gross receipts would simply create an additional burden to be borne by the passenger and freight traffic. ”

“ The gross receipts taxing structure does not single out this interstate transportation company, or discriminate against it, but rather requires it only to pay its share, at a tax rate comparable to the rates on the gross receipts of other categories of public service corporations, and in fact lower than those an many important ones. To restrict the gross receipts subject to the tax to an amount representing that part of appellant's interstate movements which takes place within the State, the State has employed an apportionment formula. ”

“ Receipts from interstate business are expressly excluded from the calculation. It is elementary that a state can neither lay a tax on the act of engaging in interstate commerce nor on gross receipts therefrom. ”

“ It will be time enough for judicial protection when a litigant actually proves, in a particular case, that state gross receipts taxes levied against the litigant have resulted in unfai a nd unjust discrimination against the litigant because of engagement in interstate commerce. Many arguments-which we might believe to be sound-can be advanced against the legislative policy of a gross receipts tax. ”

“ I do not know what else it may not tax the gross receipts for. If the interstate commerce of the country is not or will not be handicapped by this course of decision, I do not understand the ordinary principles which govern human conduct. We dissent from the opinion of the court. ”

“ The business there was that of a marketing agent for a federation of fruit growers and the state tax was measured by the gross receipts of the taxpayer from the business of marketing fruit shipped from the taxing State to the places of sale in other States and foreign countries. ”

“ Many States, for instance, impose taxe on the consumption of goods and such taxes have been sustained regardless of the extra-State origin of the goods, or whether a tax on their sale had been imposed by the seller State. Such potential taxation by consumer States is but one factor pointing to the deterrent effect on commerce by a superimposed gross receipts tax. ”

“ A state may tax the franchise of a foreign corporation upon a valuation measured by gross receipts from interstate and foreign as well as domestic commerce. This is not a direct regulation; the tax is not laid on the commerce itself. ”

“ In determining the 'gross receipts' upon which the salary of a postmaster shall be based, stamps, stamped envelops, and postal cards, sold in large or unusual quantities to any person to be used in mailing matter at other postoffices will not be included, whether the sale be made with or without solicitation by the postmaster. ”

“ Rep. 638, the tax upon the railroad company was 'equal to 1 per centum of its gross receipts.' The court held that this was 'merely an effort to reach the gross receipts, not even disguised by the name of an occupation tax, and in no way helped by the words 'equal to. ”

“ And be it further enacted, That any person, firm, company, or corporation carrying on or doing an express business, shall be subject to and pay a duty of three per centum on the gross amount of all the receipts of such express business. ”

“ In the present case the tax is, in form and substance, an excise conditioned on the carrying on of a local business, that of providing and selling advertising space in a published journal, which is sold to and paid for by subscribers, some of whom receive it in interstate commerce. The price at which the advertising is sold is made the measure of the tax. This Court has sustained a similar tax said to be on the privilege of manufacturing, measured by the total gross receipts from sales of the manufactured goods both intrastate trastate and interstate. ”

“ It is true, that the property of the contractor may be taxed, as the property of other citizens. * * * But we do not admit, that the act of purchasing, or of conveying the articles purchased, can be under state control.'
There is no distinction between a sales tax on goods sold to the federal government and a gross receipts tax upon the furnishing of goods and services under a contract with the government. ”

“ Every company . . . shall, on or before the 1st day of July in each year, pay to the State treasurer an annual tax upon the gross receipts of said company; which amount or tax shall be in lieu of all other taxes upon the property of such companies, except such real estate as is owned and can be conveyed by such corporation under the laws of this State and not actually occupied in the exercise of its franchises, and not necessary or in use in the proper operation of its road ”

“ A tax laid upon the business of a stevedoring company, the amount to be measured by a percentage of the gross receipts, has been sustained against the protest of the taxpayer that an unlawful burden is imposed thereby upon interstate and foreign commerce. We are to determine whether the tax is valid either altogether or in part.
A statute of the state of Washington provides that for the privilege of engaging in business activities within the state a tax shall be payable by persons so engaged, payment to be made according to a designated measure. ”

“ Every legislative act is to be presumed to be a constitutional exercise of legislative power until the contrary is clearly established; and there is nothing in the record before us to show that the proportion of one-fourth of the gross receipts from future sales of lots, which is fixed by the act of congress of 1877 and by the decree of the court below, as a compensation for the title and interest of the original proprietors and associates, is not a reasonable one. ”

“ The Legislature shall have power to tax merchants, peddlers, and privileges, in such manner as they may from time to time direct, and the Legislature may levy a gross receipts tax on merchants and businesses in lieu of ad valorem taxes on the inventories of merchandise held by such merchants and businesses for sale or exchange. The portion of a Merchant's Capital used in the purchase of merchandise sold by him to non-residents and sent beyond the State, shall not be taxed at a rate higher than the ad valorem tax on property. ”

“ Department of Revenue, supra, reflect an attempt to adhere to the basic purposes of the Commerce Clause. Therefore, in dealing with unapportioned taxes on interstate sales, I would adhere to the Norton rules instead of departing from them by adopting a standard of 'fairness.' I would hold that a manufacturer or wholesaler making interstate sales is not subject to a state gross receipts tax merely because those sales were solicited or processed by agents living or traveling in the taxing State. ”

“ A taxpayer, having chosen to report his taxable income from installment sales on the installment cash receipts plan, thereby spreading its gross earnings and profits from such sales over a number of years and avoiding high tax rates, was not permitted to obtain a further reduction by shifting to an accrual plan and treating uncollected balances on these installment sales as though they had actually been received in the year of the sale. ”

“ The question for determination in this proceeding is the validity, as applied to this petitioner, of a statute of the State of Texas levying an annual franchise tax on all corporations chartered or authorized to do business in Texas, measured by a graduated charge upon such proportion of the outstanding capital stock, surplus and undivided profits of the corporation, plus its long term obligations, as the gross receipts of its Texas business bear to the total gross receipts from its entire business. ”

“ Intercorporate relations may assume 'their rather cumbersome and involved nature for the purpose of evading (a State) * * * tax' on income and to 'remove income from the state though still creating it within the state.' [14] Even 'profits themselves are not susceptible of ascertainment with certainty and precision except as a result of inquiries too minute to be practicable.' [15]
Congress might conclude that the States should not be prohibited from utilizing nondiscriminatory gross receipts taxes for State revenues, because there are 'justifications for the gross receipts tax. ”

“ Under the two-factor formula that Trinova now urges upon us, it is $360,213.↑ As an alternative ground for upholding the tax, Michigan reminds us that, instead of taxing value added, it could have taxed gross receipts of sales into Michigan. We have repeatedly upheld such taxes. ”

“ Appellant Ashland Oil, Inc., a Kentucky corporation, is an integrated oil company that maintains business locations worldwide, including in West Virginia. During the years at issue here, West Virginia imposed a gross receipts tax on persons selling tangible property at wholesale. ”

“ Hitchcock has much to say about gross receipts, gross revenues, and other gross. I shall present my estimate of net profits. For this purpose, I shall take a monthly periodical reputedly issuing 650,000 copies a month, each number weighing about one pound.
Now, let it be here distinctly understood by the reader that my figures, mostly estimates, are those of a man with experience only as a small periodical publisher, say of 50,000 a month, not 650,000.
Estimated income of the publisher of a standard monthly periodical distributing 650,000 copies monthly of average weight of one pound each, Mr. ”

“ Monetary amounts have been rounded to the nearest dollar. ↑ In the notice of deficiency respondent made the following adjustments: (1) increased gross receipts on petitioner's Schedules C, Profit or Loss From Business, for the years at issue; (2) determined Schedule C business expenses for the years at issue; (3) increased petitioner's interest income for 2000-04; (4) increased petitioner's self-employment tax for the years at issue; (5) disallowed petitioner's claimed personal exemption deductions for the years at issue; and (6) allowed petitioner a rate reduction credit of $300 for 2001. ”

“ It is settled law that a State may law-fully impose upon a foreign corporation a tax for the privilege of doing business within its borders which is measured by the proportionate part of its total gross receipts that are received within the State, Maine v. ”

“ Can it be possible that any business so carried on can suffer a reduction of 29 1/2 per cent. in its receipts without ruin? What would any business man, engaged in any business of a private character, think of a compulsory reduction of his receipts to the amount of 29 1/2 per cent.? ”

“ On the other hand, if the receipts and expenditures are irregular, either in amount or in time, prudence requires the worker to keep a larger sum on hand, to insure against mishaps.*57 Even when fore-known with certainty, irregular receipts require a larger average sum to be kept on hand. ”

“ And 'realization' is not deemed to occur until the income is paid. But the decisions and regulations have consistently recognized that receipt in cash or property is not the only characteristic of realization of income to a taxpayer on the cash receipts basis. Where the taxpayer does not receive payment of income in money or property realization may occur when the last step is taken by which he obtains the fruition of the economic gain which has already accrued to him. ”

“ The receipt and the bank credit seldom keep long together, and there is no occasion that they should. The person who has a receipt, and who wants to take out bullion, finds always plenty of bank credits, or bank money, to buy at the ordinary price, and the person who has bank money, and wants to take out bullion, finds receipts always in equal abundance. ”

“ When a law-abiding taxpayer mistakenly receives income in one year, which receipt is assailed and found to be invalid in a subsequent year, the taxpayer must nonetheless report the amount as 'gross income' in the year received. ”

“ The public, when referring to the profits of the business of a merchant, rarely ever take into account the depreciation of the buildings in which the business is carried on, notwithstanding they may have been erected out of the capital invested. Popularly speaking, the net receipts of a business are its profits. So here, as the business to be carried on was that of an exhibition, and its profits were to be derived only from its receipts, to the popular mind the net receipts would represent the net profits. ”