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State And Local Taxation -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, Paul J. Hartman

Vanderbilt Law Review

As indicative of the growing importance to the bench and bar of state and local taxation, the Tennessee Supreme Court was called upon to decide three significant tax cases during the period covered by this survey article. During this period, objecting taxpayers spear-headed vigorous assaults against various privilege taxes on commerce and due process clause grounds.

Consideration Of Tax Aspects In Awarding Damages For Personal Injuries, Doris B. Gorman

Vanderbilt Law Review

The recent decision of the House of Lords, in British Transport Commission v. Gourley has completely changed the English position on the question of whether income taxes should be considered in determining personal injury damages based on actual or prospective loss of earnings. The House of Lords held that the lower court should have taken the tax aspects into account and that the damage award must be reduced accordingly. By this holding, the House of Lords overruled Jordan v. The Limmer And Trinidad Lake Asphalt Co. and Billingham v. Hughes, which until then represented the ruling law in England on …

Administration And Collection Problems, Dixwell L. Pierce

Vanderbilt Law Review

"In the field of revenue administration, there is no longer such a thing as a simple tax law. Complex problems require complex laws, and complex laws are made to protect all taxpayers alike."

When a state or local government provides for a general sales and use tax, it is assuming a heavy administrative responsibility. Such tax laws are deceptively simple. They are not easy to administer. Failure to recognize these facts has resulted all too often in disappointing revenue yields and widespread dissatisfaction among retailers and their customers.

No one really enjoys paying taxes. What may be merely mild distaste …

What Is A Sale For Sales Tax Purposes?, Clyde L. Ball

Vanderbilt Law Review

Each of the states which has adopted some form of sales tax' has also adopted its own individual definition of the term "sale" or retail sale." So long as a tax upon a business transaction does not offend some constitutional principle, a legislature is free to include such transaction within its statutory definition of a sale for purposes of an excise tax levy. The statutory definitions, then, are conditioned not by the normal denotation or connotation of the word "sale," but rather by the taxing policies of the several legislative bodies. Synthesis of these varying statutes into an acceptable general …

Sales Taxation Collection Problems, Paul J. Hartman, E. William Henry, George L. Foster

Vanderbilt Law Review

This treatment is designed to gather together a number of legal problems concerning collection of taxes in the field of sales taxation, which may confront attorneys who represent either the taxing authority or the taxpayer. Some of the problems taken up are not related to each other. They are, nevertheless, troublesome and ofttimes recurring problems. For convenience of discussion, they are grouped under the two main categories of procedural problems that arise in sales taxation collections, and the problems of the substantive liability of various parties for the tax.

The Measure Of Sales Taxes, Arthur H. Northrup

Vanderbilt Law Review

The measure of the tax is as significant a problem in sales taxation as is assessment in ad valorem property taxation or the determination of net income for income taxation. It is the base for taxation.

Sales taxes are creations of state statutes. The appendix presents a general summary of these statutes to show their provisions. Separate state excise taxes on cigarettes or spirits are not included within the scope of this paper, nor are taxes on selling, storing or distributing motor fuels or oils. These excises present special problems, as do separate taxes on extraction, oil drilling and mining. …

Sales And Use Taxes As Affected By Federal Governmental Immunity, Milton P. Rice, R. Wayne Estes

Vanderbilt Law Review

Sales and use taxes, since their advent in the early 1930's as significant state revenue producing measures have, like all other state levies, found, themselves subject to certain restrictions imposed by the Constitution of the United States. While the constitutional inhibition of greatest significance for most persons subject to these taxes has probably been the one posed by the commerce clause, or its first cousin the due process clause, an obstacle of no mean proportion to the states has been one not expressly mentioned or even alluded to in the Federal Constitution,' yet this barrier is as much a part …

Analysis Of Sales And Use Tax Exemptions -- With Comment As To More Uniform Applications, George D. Brabson

Vanderbilt Law Review

There are, generally speaking, three broad areas of exemption understatutes imposing sales and use taxes in the United States. These are:

(a) Exemptions arising out of the immunities of governmental agencies and instrumentalities, or out of the exercise of governmental functions (b) Exemptions arising under the commerce clause of the federal constitution (c) Specific exemptions created out of governmental taxing policies or social economic considerations

Each of these areas of exemption has grown up somewhat haphazardly over a substantial period of time, and very largely as the result of shifting judicial opinion, rather than as a matter of consistent legislative …

The Use Tax: Its Relationship To The Sales Tax, Eugene Greener Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The use tax was conceived as a necessary supplement to the successful administration of the sales tax. With a use tax, in addition to a sales tax, legislators felt they had developed a taxing method that was symmetrical and complete.

Thus, if for some reason a sale at retail of tangible personal property escaped tax, "the use, the consumption, the distribution, and the storage [of the property would be taxed] after it has come to rest in this state and has become a part of the mass of property in this state."'

But as the poet Robert Burns intimated about …

The Literature Of Sales Taxation, Denzel C. Cline

Vanderbilt Law Review

This paper is limited to literature on general sales taxes and will not include taxes imposed upon the sale of particular commodities, such as gasoline or tobacco. It is also limited to publications by American authors in the last-quarter century. Even so, it is impossible in an article of this size to mention all of the contributions to the literature."

References for legal articles on sales and use taxes and related topics, such as interstate commerce, which are published in the law journals are found in the Index of Legal Periodicals. Another excellent bibliographical source is the Tax Institute Bookshelf, …