# First Agricultural National Bank of Berkshire County v. State Tax Commission

> Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · July 27, 1967 · 353 Mass. 172

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9712999

## Case

- **Full name:** First Agricultural National Bank of Berkshire County vs. State Tax Commission
- **Court:** Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
- **Decided:** July 27, 1967
- **Citations:** 353 Mass. 172; 229 N.E.2d 245; 1967 Mass. LEXIS 706
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Cutter
- **Judges:** Wilkins, Whittemorb, Cutter, Spiegel, Reardon
- **Cited by:** 28 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Red flag:** Reversed on other grounds by First Agricultural National Bank of Berkshire County v. State Tax Commission, 392 U.S. 339 (1968).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9712999

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting that sales tax is “in part a levy on the vendor for the privilege of selling at retail”

## Opinion text

Cutter, J.
(concurring) The later part of the opinion of the court takes the position, with which I agree, that the Constitution of the United States and 12 U. S. C. § 548 *197 (1964) do not prevent the imposition of a nondiserimina-tory State use tax with respect to a situation or transaction in which a national bank has become the purchaser and user of tangible personal property. Similar considerations seem to me to permit the imposition of a nondiscriminatory State sales tax with respect to a transaction in which a national bank is the purchaser of tangible personal property. I concur in the result of the opinion of the court on this ground which seems to me to be implicit in what the opinion of the court says about the use tax. In my view, there is no occasion to decide whether the legal incidence of the Massachusetts sales tax is upon such a national bank as a retail purchaser or upon its vendor.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9712999. Public record. Not legal advice.
