holding that states may not “impose a burden on the national govern- ment tantamount to an interference … with the … performance 11 of its functions”
How later courts described this case
- holding that states may not “impose a burden on the national govern- ment tantamount to an interference … with the … performance 11 of its functions”
- “when exemption from state taxation is claimed on the ground that the federal government is burdened by the tax, and Congress has disclosed no intention with respect to the claimed immunity, it is in order to consider the nature and effect of the alleged burden ...”
- holding such income taxes nondiscriminatory and permissible
- intergovernmental tax immunity bars only those taxes imposed on one sovereign by another that are discriminatory
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by United States v. Maryland, 488 F. Supp. 347 (1980)
The United States, on the other hand, argues that the Graves decision is distinguishable on the ground that Members of Congress collectively are the Congress and that any state or local income tax on a Member of Congress, imposed without the express consent of Congress, is an unconstitutional tax on the federal government itself.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Butler,
dissenting:
Mr. Justice McReynolds and I- are of opinion that the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, being an instrumentality of the United States heretofore deemed immune from state taxation, “it necessarily results,” as held in New York ex rel. Rogers v. Graves (1937) 299 U. S. 401 , “that fixed salaries and compensation paid to its officers and employees in their capacity as such are likewise immune”; and that the judgment of the state court, unquestionably required by that decision, should be affirmed:
From the decision just announced, it is clear that the Court has overruled Dobbins v. Commissioners of Erie County (1842) 16 Pet. 435 ; Collector v. Day (1871) 11 Wall. 113 ; New York ex rel. Rogers v. Graves, supra, and Brush v. Commissioner (1937) 300 U. S. 352 . Thus now it appears that the United States has always had power to tax salaries of state officers and employees and that *493 similarly free have been the States to tax salaries of officers and employees of the United States. The compensation for past as well as for future service to be taxed and the rates prescribed in the exertion of the newly disclosed power depend on legislative discretion not subject to judicial revision. Futile indeed are the vague intimations that this Court may protect against excessive or destructive taxation. Where the power to tax exists, legislatures may exert it to destroy, to discourage, to protect or exclusively for the purpose of raising revenue. See e. g. Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533, 548 ; McCray v. United States, 195 U. S. 27 , 53 et seq.; Magnano Co. v. Hamilton, 292 U. S. 40 , 44 et seq.; Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States, 301 U. S. 308 .
Appraisal of lurking or apparent implications of the Court’s opinion can serve no useful end for, should occasion arise, they may be ignored or given direction differing from that at first seemingly intended. But safely it may be said that presently marked for destruction is the doctrine of reciprocal immunity that by recent decisions here has been so much impaired.