TAXATION - STEVEDORING AS INTERSTATE COMMERCE - CONSTITUTIONALITY OF OCCUPATION TAX

Authors

Ralph Winkler, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

The state of Washington enacted a business privilege tax, the amount of which was to be determined on a gross income basis. A domestic corporation had been servicing vessels engaged in interstate commerce in two ways-it supplied stevedores to the vessels, and it did the work of loading and unloading. In a bill to enjoin the collection of this tax the Supreme Court of Washington dismissed the suit on the ground that the corporation was not engaged in interstate commerce. On appeal, held (1) furnishing stevedores to the vessels without maintaining control over the operations of the workmen is a local employment business and the tax thereon is a proper one. (2) But to the extent that the tax applies to that income which is received from its own performance of the work the tax is invalid as a tax on the privilege of engaging in interstate commerce. Puget Sound Stevedoring Co. v. Tax Commission of State of Washington, 302 U. S. 90, 58 S. Ct. 72 (1937).

Recommended Citation

Ralph Winkler, TAXATION - STEVEDORING AS INTERSTATE COMMERCE - CONSTITUTIONALITY OF OCCUPATION TAX, 36 Mich. L. Rev. 1039 (1938).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol36/iss6/26