Taxation-State and Local Commons^™

Constitutional Law-Commerce Clause-State Taxation Of Interstate Commerce, William H. Bates

Michigan Law Review

Appellant, a Missouri corporation, was domiciled in Illinois and engaged in interstate trucking of commodities to and from Connecticut. The appellant had twenty-seven employees, office equipment, pick-up trucks and two terminals within Connecticut. Approximately one-third to one-half of appellant's business originated in Connecticut, but a very small percentage of the total mileage traveled by its trucks lay within the state. Appellant was not engaged in intrastate commerce, nor had it been authorized to transact such business. Under the Connecticut Corporation Business Tax Act of 1935 appellant was assessed for taxes and penalties. The statute imposed a franchise tax upon certain …

Taxation-Immunity Of Federal Bonds To State Taxation, Lenamyra Saulson

Michigan Law Review

A New Jersey statute imposed a tax on domestic stock insurance corporations on the value of intangible property exclusive of tax-exempt property but required an assessment against all intangible property of not less than fifteen per cent of capital and surplus in excess of liabilities. In conformity with this statute, a tax was imposed on the appellant, a domestic stock insurance corporation, of fifteen per cent of the entire net worth, without deduction of the principal amount of tax-exempt United States bonds and accrued interest thereon. The appellant appealed to the United States Supreme Court on the ground that the …

Constitutional Law-Exports-Immunity From State Taxation, Paul E. Anderson S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Article 1, section 10 of the Constitution provides, "No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports . . . . " This clause places a limitation on state taxing power. The basic problem is to determine at what point goods in the process of being manufactured and prepared for foreign shipment become exports. If the goods are found to be exports, they are immune to state taxation. Two recent Supreme Court decisions have dealt with this question in an attempt to lay down a general rule applicable to future situations. Because …

State Taxation Of Interstate Commerce--What Now?, Robert C. Brown

Michigan Law Review

Perennial indeed have been the problems of state taxation affecting interstate commerce and the problems of intergovernmental taxation as between state and federal governments. The two problems are quite similar except that the intergovernmental problem is mutual while the interstate problem affects only state taxing power. But both are alike in that the restrictions on the taxing power are entirely judicial, and that while some restrictions are desirable they must themselves be limited lest we have not regulation but destruction of taxing power.

The intergovernmental problem is virtually settled with the allowance of non-discriminatory taxation on both sides, except as …

Municipal Corporations-Circumventing Municipal Debt Limitations, Joseph F. Gricar S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Since municipalities are frequently indebted to the permissible extent of the constitutional, statutory, and charter debt limitations, they are constantly seeking methods of finance which avoid the debt limits. Three devices have received judicial sanction. First: Where a separate and distinct. corporation such as a school or drain district has been created it may operate with a separate debt limit over the same territory as the governing municipality. Second: Where the project to be financed is income-producing, the financing bond issue, if made self-liquidating, will not Gome within the debt limitations. Although incorporated authorities have been extensively used to administer …

Personal Property-United States Savings Bonds--Effect Of Registration In Co-Ownership Or Beneficiary Form As A Transfer Of A Property Interest Therein, Walter L. Dean

Michigan Law Review

In two recent cases, decedents purchased United States Savings Bonds registered in the name of the purchaser and another person which were never delivered to the named co-owner but remained in the possession of the purchaser until his death. In the first case, on appeal from an order of the district court refusing to impose an inheritance tax on the bonds after the death of the purchaser, held, reversed. Mere purchase of the bonds and their registration in the names of the co-owners without delivery transferred no interest to the co-owners during the life of the purchaser and is …

Constitutional Law-Commerce Clause-State Taxation Of Interstate Commerce, Charles Myneder

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff corporation owned and operated oil pipe lines lying wholly within the state of Mississippi. Oil transported through these lines was later pumped into railroad tank cars and shipped out of state. The Mississippi State Tax Commission levied a tax against plaintiff measured by its gross receipts for transporting oil through the pipe lines. The state supreme court sustained the tax, ruling that the operation of the pipe lines was intrastate rather than interstate commerce and that the tax was "merely on the privilege of operating a pipe line wholly within this state as a local activity." On appeal to …

Constitutional Law-Equal Protection-Foreign Corporations-Discriminatory Intangibles Tax, Robert P. Griffin S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

An Ohio statute required foreign corporations doing business within the state to pay an ad valorem tax on accounts receivable which arose through outstate sales of goods shipped from warehouses within the state, even though the sales were consummated by an agent maintaining his office without the state. Such intangibles were declared by the Ohio statutory formula to have a situs within the state. At the same time, the accounts receivable of Ohio residents and domestic corporations which were derived from outstate sales by agents having their offices without the state were exempt, even though the goods were shipped from …

Constitutional Law--Commerce Clause--Due Process--State Taxation Of Interstate Barges, E. Blythe Stason, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Action was brought to recover ad valorem taxes assessed and collected by the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana on plaintiff's freight ba1ges used in interstate commerce. Plaintiff was a foreign corporation, and its barges were enrolled at ports outside Louisiana but were not taxed by the state of incorporation. They moved, without a fixed schedule, on the Mississippi River. The tax was apportioned on the basis of miles travelled in Louisiana to miles travelled everywhere. Plaintiff argued that the tax violated the due process and commerce clauses of the Constitution because the vessels acquired no tax …

Conflict Of Laws-Enforcing Tax Laws Of Sister States, Bernard L. Trott S. Ed.

Michigan Law Review

In the recent case City of Detroit v. Proctor, the defendant, a resident of Detroit, was owner of personal property located there in the year 1939. The city levied a tax on this property, which tax became a debt under the laws of Michigan on the first day of April, 1939, and became due and · payable on the 15th of July, 1939. During the month of June, 1939, the defendant removed both his person and his property from the state of Michigan and has since resided elsewhere. The treasurer of the city of Detroit, who is empowered by …

Constitutional Law-Interstate Commerce--Validity Of Statute Requiring Collection Of Use Tax By Out-Of-State Vendor Engaged Solely In Interstate Commerce, J. C. Mordy

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, a Tennessee corporation, sued to recover taxes paid under protest pursuant to the Mississippi Use Tax Act. The act required collection by retailers "maintaining a place of business" in the state, which phrase was defined as including any retailer having any agent operating within the state. Plaintiff's salesmen, nonresidents of Mississippi, solicited orders for goods within that state. Acceptance of the orders and delivery to an interstate carrier were at plaintiff's home office in Tennessee. Held, insofar as the act requires a nonresident vendor to collect the tax, it violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. …

Constitutional Law-State Taxation Of Gross Receipts From Interstate Commerce, John C. Walker

Michigan Law Review

A New York statute imposed a tax of two per cent on the gross receipts of all utilities doing business within the state. The State Tax Commission construed this statute as applicable to the total receipts of petitioner derived from transporting passengers for hire from a point within New York to another point within the same state over a route which passed through New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The state courts affirmed the determination of the commission, and the petitioner appealed. Held, reversed and remanded. The transportation was interstate, and an unapportioned tax on the gross receipts derived therefrom was …

A Review Of Annual Survey Of American Law: 1947, Edson R. Sunderland

Michigan Law Review

This is the sixth annual volume in which the faculty of the New York University School of Law has published its summary of the important developments in American law. The magnitude of the task required to produce these volumes would be considered beyond the capacity of the teaching staff of any single law school if the actual publication, year by year, of these monumental surveys did not prove that it could be accomplished.

Constitutional Law-State Taxation Of Interstate Commerce -Validity Of Apportioned Capital Tax On Corporation Engaged Solely In Interstate Commerce, R. V. Wellman S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff gas company, a Delaware corporation, transported gas by pipe line across a section of Mississippi. Its activities in Mississippi admittedly did not constitute intrastate commerce and plaintiff had no agent for service of process in that state. Mississippi imposed a "franchise or excise" tax on all· corporations present in the state, measured by applying a specified rate against the value of the capital employed within its boundaries. This tax was in addition to, and independent of, the locally imposed ad valorem taxes levied against plaintiff's property. Alleging the franchise tax to be invalid under the commerce clause of the …

Constitutional Aspects Of Federal Anti-Poll Tax Legislation, Joseph E. Kallenbach

Michigan Law Review

The proposal to abolish by national law the requirement now prevailing in seven Southern states that voters shall have paid a poll tax in order to vote in any national election involves a constitutional issue of the first magnitude. In the decade immediately following the Civil War the constitutional division of authority between the national and state governments in dealing with the question of Negro suffrage became a point of bitter controversy in Congress. Out of this struggle came the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, with certain supporting legislation, the aim of which was to prohibit disfranchisement of …

Constitutional Law--State Taxation Of Interstate Commerce, George Brody S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The city of Richmond by ordinance required all solicitors to pay an annual tax before being permitted to solicit business within the city. Appellant, a representative of a Washington, D.C. firm, was arrested for soliciting without having previously procured the required license. Appellant was convicted and her conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. On appeal to the United States Supreme Court she contended that the statute upon which her conviction was based was unconstitutional, inasmuch as it was repugnant to the Commerce Clause of the Federal Constitution. Held, reversed. Taxes that discriminate against interstate …

The Federal Constitution Today-Important Decisions Of The Supreme Court In The Last Eight Years 1937-1944 Inclusive, Burke Shartel

Michigan Law Review

In recent years one often hears lawyers say that the Constitution is gone; or one hears them echo the remark of Charles E. Hughes, made while he was Governor of New York, "We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is," and then perhaps add that lawyers can no longer determine with any assurance what the judges will do or will say the Constitution is. Such expressions and reactions are not unnatural in any period of rapid doctrinal change. All contain a large element of truth. Certainly much of the Constitutional Law is gone …

Taxation-Assessment Of Government-Owned Property Leased To Private Enterprise, Allen C. Holmes

Michigan Law Review

The Board of Property Assessment, Appeals, and Review of Allegheny County for ad valorem taxes in the state of Pennsylvania increased the assessed value of the realty of the Mesta Machine Company by the sum of $618,000 to include the value of certain additional machinery which had been installed on the premises. The machinery was leased by the United States Government to the company and was placed in the factory in order that the company might manufacture heavy field guns for the Government, under a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The legal title and the beneficial ownership of the machinery remained in the …

Municipal Corporations - Constitutional Law-Exemption Of Homesteads From Taxation For State Purposes, Hobart Taylor, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A taxpayer brought a class suit in his own name for the use and benefit of himself and other taxpayers against the city of Wichita Falls to have an ordinance exempting from all taxes $3,000 of the assessed taxable values of all residence homesteads of the city declared void, and for a permanent injunction restraining the city from allowing such exemption and issuing certificates therefor to owners of homesteads. The ordinance had been passed under authority of a constitutional amendment permitting a similar exemption for "state purposes." Held, a homestead is taxable under the constitution for all purposes other …

Taxation - Special Assessments - Due Process - Requirement Of Notice For Repair Of Existing Improvement, Hobart Taylor, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff brought this action against the Board of Commissioners of Wells County, Indiana, to quiet his title to 160 acres of land owned by him in the county and to enjoin enforcement of supplementary drainage assessments upon the property as permitted by Indiana law. Plaintiff contended that the statute creating drainage districts was violative of due process of law and unconstitutional in that it authorized supplementary assessments to be made by the Board of Commissioners without the same notice and hearing which was required before the original assessment could be made. On demurrer, the Wells Circuit Court held for plaintiff …

Recent Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The abstracts consist merely of summaries of the facts and holdings of recent cases and are distinguished from the notes by the absence of discussion.

Taxation-- Use Tax--Collection By A Foreign Corporation--Inapplicable Where Foreign Corporation Makes Strictly Interstate Sales, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The Michigan Use Tax Act requires every seller of tangible personal property for storage, use or other consumption in the state of Michigan, engaged in the business of selling at retail in Michigan, to collect the tax imposed by the act. Plaintiff is an Illinois corporation operating a merchant tailoring establishment in Chicago. It takes orders in Michigan, from residents, for clothes, fills the orders in Chicago and, by agreement, the title to the clothes is vested in the purchaser upon delivery in Chicago to an interstate carrier. It maintains a branch office in Detroit where samples are kept, salesmen …

Constitutional Law-Taxation - Express Immunity Of Federal Instrumentalities, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A federal land bank filed a complaint against defendant lumber company and the tax commissioner seeking exemption from a state sales tax on purchases of lumber by the bank. The Supreme Court of North Dakota found the bank liable for the tax and on certiorari to the United States Supreme Court it was held, that the Federal Farm Loan Act conferred express immunity from the tax upon the bank and that such Congressional exemption was constitutional by virtue of the "necessary and proper" clause. Federal Land Bank of St. Paul v. Bismarck Lumber Co. (U.S. 1941) 62 S. Ct. …

Constitutional Law - Constitutionality Of State Sales Tax On Defense Materials Purchased Under A Cost-Plus-A-Fixed-Fee Contract With The Federal Government, Lloyd M. Forster

Michigan Law Review

X had a cost-plus-a-fixed-fee contract with the federal government, under which the government reserved the right to pay directly for purchases made by X pursuant to contract to give prior authorization for each purchase over $500, to inspect and acquire title to materials delivered under such contract, and to furnish materials itself. X ordered lumber from plaintiff, who contested the constitutionality of an Alabama sales tax levied on this sale, contending that the tax was levied on a transaction by which the United States secured goods for governmental purposes. Held, the tax should be sustained, since X, and …

Taxation - Power Of Municipality To Tax Income Of State Officials, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Pennsylvania statute empowered the city of Philadelphia to levy taxes on "persons, transactions, occupations, privileges, subjects and personal property" within Philadelphia. Pursuant to such authority the city enacted an ordinance imposing a tax of one and one-half per cent annually on salaries, wages, commissions, and other compensation earned by nonresidents for work performed in Philadelphia. Plaintiff, employed by an agency of Pennsylvania engaged in performance of governmental functions, brought suit to restrain the collection of the tax. Held, the statute grants the power to tax salaries of state officials and is not invalidated by any doctrine of governmental …

Constitutional Law - Impairing The Obligation Of Contracts - Refunding Bonds, John F. Hall

Michigan Law Review

In 1938, Mississippi authorized the issuance of state highway bonds in the aggregate of $60,000,000. Interest was payable semiannually and the bonds were to mature serially semiannually, and to the extent necessary to make these payments the revenues from gasoline taxes were pledged. The act further provided that the state covenanted that so long as any of the bonds were outstanding and unpaid, it would not authorize "any other obligations or securities payable from gasoline tax revenues" unless such revenues should increase in such an amount that one-third of the proceeds would be sufficient to meet the principal and interest …

Constitutional Law - Federal Immunity From State Tax, David N. Mills

Michigan Law Review

An Alabama statute imposed an inchoate lien on all property in the state as of October 1st of each year, such lien to continue until taxes for the ensuing year were paid. The United States acquired title to certain lands after October 1, 1936, but before the final 1937 assessment was made and the rate for county taxes set. None of the 1937 taxes were due. The United States did not pay the taxes, and on their becoming delinquent, sued to quiet title. Held, by a unanimous court, that although Alabama could not foreclose the lien without obtaining the …

The Supreme Court, The Commerce Clause, And State Legislation, Vincent M. Barnett, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Recent decisions have revealed a growing rift in the Supreme Court on the question of the effect of the commerce clause on state legislation. This question, a perennial one in our constitutional history, concerns state legislation affecting in some way or other the carrying on of interstate business, and the validity of that legislation in view of the clause giving Congress the authority to regulate interstate commerce. The permissible scope of state activity in the absence of Congressional action has been the troublesome problem. If Congress acts, the issue is a relatively simple one. When the state action conflicts with …

Constitutional Law - Validity Of State Use Tax On Mail Order Sales Of Foreign Corporation, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The respondent, a New York corporation licensed to do retail business in Iowa, did a large mail order business there also. Iowa customers sent orders by mail to the company's warehouses located outside that state, and the merchandise was shipped directly to the purchaser. On these mail order sales the company neither collected from its customers, nor paid to the state, the Iowa use tax. The petitioner, chairman of the state tax commission, threatened to cancel the respondent's license as a retailer and its permit to do business in Iowa unless such use tax were paid. Respondent obtained an injunction …

Taxation - Jurisdiction To Tax The Equitable Interest Of A Trust Beneficiary, Rex B. Martin

Michigan Law Review

Pennsylvania levied a property tax on a resident beneficiary's equitable interest in a New York trust. The settlor of the trust, a New York resident, had created the trust there and both the trustee and the stocks and bonds comprising the corpus were in that state. The beneficiary had no control over the disposition or management of the corpus and was entitled merely to the income of the trust for her life. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the tax. On appeal to the United States Supreme Court, held, in a per curiam decision without opinion, that the state court's …