stating that federal taxpayers do not have standing to challenge tax credits because (1) an injury “based on the asserted effect of [an] allegedly illegal [tax credit] on public revenues” is “not concrete and particularized, but instead a grievance the taxpayer suffers in some indefinite way in common with people generally!,]” (2) such injury is “not ‘actual or imminent,’ but instead ‘conjectural or hypothetical’ ” because “it is unclear that tax breaks ... do in fact deplete the treasury[,]” and (3) “establishing redressability requires speculating that abolishing the challenged credit will redound to the benefit of the taxpayer because legislators will pass along the supposed increased revenue in the form of tax reductions” (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130)
How later courts described this case
- stating that federal taxpayers do not have standing to challenge tax credits because (1) an injury “based on the asserted effect of [an] allegedly illegal [tax credit] on public revenues” is “not concrete and particularized, but instead a grievance the taxpayer suffers in some indefinite way in common with people generally!,]” (2) such injury is “not ‘actual or imminent,’ but instead ‘conjectural or hypothetical’ ” because “it is unclear that tax breaks ... do in fact deplete the treasury[,]” and (3) “establishing redressability requires speculating that abolishing the challenged credit will redound to the benefit of the taxpayer because legislators will pass along the supposed increased revenue in the form of tax reductions” (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130)
- stating that the Flast Court discerned in the history of the Establishment Clause “the specific evils feared by [its drafters] that the taxing and spending power would be used to favor one religion over another or to support religion in general” and that the “injury” alleged in Establishment Clause challenges to federal spending is the very “extraction] and spenfding]” of “tax money” in aid of religion alleged by a plaintiff (quoting Flast, 392 U.S. at 103, 106, 88 S.Ct. 1942)
- recognizing that taxpayer standing to challenge public expenditures has been rejected "because the alleged injury is not 'concrete and particularized,' but instead a grievance the taxpayer 'suffers in some indefinite way in common with people generally,' " and that "the injury is not 'actual or imminent,' but instead 'conjectural or hypothetical' "
- stating that the ordinary taxpayer lacks standing to sue over government expenditures because the taxpayer's "interest in the moneys of the Treasury ... is shared with millions of others [and] is comparatively minute and indeterminable" (first alteration in original) (citation omitted)
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Ginsburg,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Today’s decision, the Court rightly points out, is solidly grounded in longstanding precedent, Frothingham v. Mellon, decided with Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447 (1923), and Doremus v. Board of Ed. of Hawthorne, 342 U. S. 429 (1952), decisions that antedate current jurisprudence on standing to sue. See ante, at 343, 345. Frothingham held nonjusticiable a federal taxpayer’s suit challenging a federal-spending program. See 262 U. S., at 487 (describing taxpayer’s interest as “minute and indeterminable”). Doremus applied Frothingham’s reasoning to a state taxpayer’s suit. 342 U. S., at 434 . These decisions exclude from federal-court cognizance claims, not delineated by Congress, presenting generalized grievances. An exception to Frothingham’s rule, recognized post-Doremus in Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83 (1968), covers certain alleged violations of the Establishment Clause. The Flast exception has not been extended to other areas. See Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U. S. *355 589, 618 (1988); cf. Enrich, Saving the States from Themselves: Commerce Clause Constraints on State Tax Incentives for Business, 110 Harv. L. Rev. 377 , 417-418 (1996).
One can accept, as I do, the nonjusticiability of Frothingham-type federal and state taxpayer suits in federal court without endorsing as well the limitations on standing later declared in Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U. S. 26 (1976) (EKWRO); Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464 (1982); Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737 (1984); and Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555 (1992). See EKWRO, 426 U. S., at 54-66 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment); Valley Forge, 454 U. S., at 513-515 (Stevens, J., dissenting); Allen, 468 U. S., at 783-795 (same), and the overturned Court of Appeals opinion, Wright v. Regan, 656 F. 2d 820, 828-832 (CADC 1981) (Ginsburg, J.); Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S., at 582-585 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment); Sunstein, What’s Standing after Lujan? Of Citizen Suits, “Injuries,” and Article III, 91 Mich. L. Rev. 163 , 203-205, 228-229 (1992) (contrasting Lujan, Allen, and EKWRO with Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978)); Fletcher, The Structure of Standing, 98 Yale L. J. 221, 267-270 (1988) (commenting on Flast and Valley Forge). Noting this large reservation, I concur in the judgment, and in the balance of the Court’s opinion.