[3] OPINION OF THE COURT BY
NAKAMURA, J.
Aloha Airlines, Inc. and Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. (hereafter Aloha and Hawaiian, respectively; the taxpayers, collectively) challenge the taxation of inter-island air carriers under the Public Service Company Tax Law, HRS Chapter 239, in these consolidated appeals from the Tax Appeal Court. They claim the assessment of a tax on the “gross income each year from the airline business” pursuant to HRS § 239-61 runs afoul of the federal constitution’s [4] Supremacy and Commerce Clauses2 because 49 U.S.C. § 1513 proscribes the levy of a tax premised on “the gross receipts derived” from air transportation.3 We conclude the State tax in question, as applied to the taxpayers, has not been rendered unconstitutional by [5] the foregoing federal legislation and affirm the Tax Court’s decisions.
I.
Aloha and Hawaiian are Hawaii corporations engaged in the transportation of persons, property, and mail by air between terminal and intermediate points in Hawaii. Prior to the enactment of S.L.H. 1981, c. 167, they fell within the meaning of “Public service company” as the term was defined in HRS § 239-2 because a common carrier by air was deemed a public utility by HRS § 269-1.4 See In re Tax Appeal of Aloha Airlines, Inc., 56 Haw. 626, 627, 547 P.2d 586, 587 (1976). Although the crucial federal statute was enacted in 1973 as part of the Airport Development Acceleration Act of 1973, the taxpayers nevertheless continued to file annual returns as required by HRS § 239-4 and to pay the tax as prescribed by HRS § 239-6 without question for several years thereafter. The taxpayers’ present position on the invalidity of HRS § 239-6 as it applies to airlines was initially advanced in 1977 when Aloha filed amended returns for the 1973, 1974, and 1975 calendar years. Hawaiian sought no refund of the tax payments in question until 1978 when it submitted, amended returns for 1973, 1974, 1975, and 1976. All claims for refunds were summarily disallowed by the State Director of Taxation (the Director). Aloha’s return for 1976 and Hawaiian’s return for 1977 reflected their present views regarding the unconstitutional nature of the Public Service Company Tax. The Director, however, ruled 49 U.S.C. § 1513 was “not applicable for Hawaii tax purpose,” and assessments consistent with HRS § 239-6 were made. Timely appeals to the Tax Appeal Court from the Director’s determinations on the refunds and assessments followed.
[6] The appeals were submitted to the Tax Appeal Court for decision on stipulated facts and briefs filed by the taxpayers and the Director. Aloha and Hawaiian conceded they were public service companies within the meaning of HRS § 239-2, but argued, as they do here, that there is an irreconcilable conflict between HRS § 239-6 and 49 U.S.C. § 1513 and the State law has been voided by the federal statute. The court rejected their arguments, ruled the Public Service Company Tax is “a property tax and a general tax,” and concluded the Director properly assessed the tax against the taxpayers.
II.
Aloha asserts the State law in question contravenes the Commerce Clause and the Supremacy Clause of the federal constitution; Hawaiian’s claim of unconstitutionality is premised on the Supremacy Clause. We begin our analysis with a review of the State and federal statutory provisions involved.
A.
Hawaii’s Public Service Company Tax is a direct descendant of the Public Utility Tax which was adopted in 1932. Although airlines were not covered by the tax on public utilities when it first became effective, they became subject to the tax shortly thereafter.5 Two decades later, air carriers were exempted from payment of the utility tax and subjected to taxation under the General Excise Tax Law.6 The legislature reconsidered this decision in 1963 and again decided inter-island air carriers should be classified with public [7] utilities for State tax purposes; it concomitantly redesignated the Public Utility Tax as the Public Service Company Tax. See S.L.H. 1963, c. 147, § 2(a). Airlines have since been subject to taxation pursuant to HRS § 239-6 which delineates the basis and the rates for assessing the tax against common carriers by air and water, motor carriers, and contract carriers other than motor carriers. The foregoing provisions levy a flat four or three percent tax on gross income from utility business. Others subject to the Public Service Company Tax are likewise taxed on the basis of their gross incomes, but at varying rates (beginning at 5.885%) determined in each case by the ratio between the net income and the gross income from utility business. See HRS § -239-5.
Our Territorial predecessors considered the nature of the levy in question early in the history of the Public Utility Tax; they concluded it “imposes a tax comparable to the ad valorem real and personal property taxes otherwise imposed” by the laws of the Territory of Hawaii. Hawaii Consolidated Railway v. Borthwick, 34 Haw. 269, 281 (1937), aff'd, 105 F.2d 286 (1939). And the rationale for so concluding was stated in part as follows:
Authorities on taxation have uniformly recognized with approval the efforts of some of the States to avoid the difficulties encountered in ad valorem assessments of the real and personal property of utilities actually employed in the utility business by substituting a tax upon gross incomes from utilities from utility business, upon net income from the same source or both. (See Lutz, Public Finance [2d ed.] p. 462, etseq.; Luce, “Assessment of Real Property for Taxation,” 35 Mich. L. Rev. 1217; Ravage, “Valuation of Public Utilities for Ad Valorem Taxation,” 41 Yale L. J. 487.) And this method of taxation of real and personal property of utilities within the taxing jurisdiction has the unqualified approval of the courts. It will suffice to cite the leading cases on the subject decided by the United States Supreme Court. (See Cudahy Packing Co. v. Minnesota, 246 U.S. 450, 453, United States Express Co. v. Minnesota, 223 U.S. 335, 346; Galveston, Harrisburg, etc. Ry. Co. v. Texas, 210 U.S. 217, 226, 227.)
Id. at 280. In the court’s view, the “earning capacity of property devoted to the utility business .. . [was] reflected by gross income from [the] utility business.” Id. at 281. We have not had occasion to examine the relevant taxing provisions since the specific language [8] covering the taxation of airlines and other carriers was adopted in 1963.
B.
Turning to the federal statutes, we initially note the Airport and Airway Development Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 219 (the Development Act) and the Airport and Airway Revenue Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 236 (the Revenue Act) were passed in tandem “to provide for the expansion and improvement of the Nation’s airport and airway system.” H. R. Rep. No. 91-601,91st Cong., 2d Sess., 1 ,reprintedin [1970] U.S. CODE CONG. & AD. NEWS 3047,3047. In short, the Development Act declared a congressional policy to increase federal expenditures for the foregoing purpose and the Revenue Act was designed to provide the means for implementation. “In substantial part, this purpose . . . [was] to be achieved through the imposition and application of airport and airway user charges.” Id. Certain taxes already in existence were increased and other new aviation user taxes were imposed to finance the desired expansion and improvement of the system. See 26 U.S.C. §§ 4261 and 4271. The taxes imposed on the air transportation of persons and property were made payable in each case “by the person making the payment subject to tRe tax.”7 26 U.S.C. §§ 4261(d) and 4271(b)(1). And an [9] Airport and Airway Trust Fund was established to serve as the repository of the taxes collected and the moneys appropriated for the program.8
Two years later Congress’ attention was redirected to the program by a perceived need for even greater federal funding of the costs of airport development. But in the meanwhile the Supreme Court’s decision in Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority District v. Delta Airlines, Inc., 405 U.S. 707 (1972), had been issued. There, the Court held the imposition of “a charge by a State or municipality of $1 per commercial airline passenger to help defray the costs of airport construction and maintenance,” id. at 709, did not necessarily constitute an undue burden on interstate commerce. Fearing a proliferation of similar charges at airports throughout the country, Congress included the provisions presently codified as 49 U.S.C. § 1513 in the Airport Development Acceleration Act of 1973,87 Stat. 88-90 (1973). That the proscriptions embodied therein were in response to the judicial approval of the new head taxes adopted by state and local governments subsequent to the passage of the Airport and Airway Development and Revenue Acts of 1970 is expressly confirmed by a pertinent legislative document. See S. Rep. No. 93-12,93d Cong., 1st Sess. 1, reprinted in [1973] U.S. CODE CONG. & AD. NEWS 1434.9
[10] The preemptive language chosen by Congress, however, is couched in the broadest of terms in one subsection of 49 U.S.C. § 1513. Section 1513 (a) forbids the levy or collection of a state or local
tax, fee, head charge, or other charge, directly or indirectly, on persons traveling in air commerce or on the carriage of persons traveling in air commerce or on the sale of air transportation or on the gross receipts derived therefrom.
Read literally, the subsection decrees a federal preemption of the entire field of commercial aviation taxes. For every tax, fee, or charge levied on air transportation must perforce be met, directly or indirectly, from gross receipts derived from “the airline business” or by the users of air transportation. But § 1513(b) demonstrates that Congress could not have intended so broad a preemptive sweep since the subsection permits the levy and collection of state and local
taxes other than those enumerated in subsection (a).. . , including property taxes, net income taxes, franchise taxes, and sales or use taxes ón the sale of goods or services.
Property taxes, net income taxes, and franchise taxes, of course, are ordinarily derived from the “gross receipts” of airlines, and sales taxes applicable to air transportation can only be those where the [11] incidence would normally be expected to fall on the ultimate users of airline services. Our task then is to harmonize the seeming contradictions consistently with the purpose of the relevant federal legislation and ascertain whether the tax imposed by HRS § 239-6 is a forbidden charge enumerated in § 1513(a) or a permitted tax described by § 1513(b).
III.
Focusing on the allegations of unconstitutionality advanced by the taxpayers, we first address Aloha’s assertion that HRS § 239-6, as it has been applied to inter-island air carriers, constitutes an undue burden on commerce.
Aloha claims the exaction of the tax in question is inconsistent with the Commerce Clause under principles enunciated in Crandall v. Nevada, 73 U.S. 35 (1867), Capitol Greyhound Lines v. Brice, 339 U.S. 542 (1950), and Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority District v. Delta Airlines, Inc., supra. The cases in Aloha’s estimation proclaim a “rule” that “a tax upon interstate commerce will only be constitutional if it is not excessive in comparison with the state or local governmental benefit conferred.” Since the tax at issue generates revenues for the State’s General Fund and not for purposes related to airport development and maintenance, Aloha argues the State confers no benefit in exchange for the levy and the tax therefore fails to pass constitutional muster.
But in Crandall and Evansville-Vanderburgh, the questioned charges were passenger head taxes imposed on persons traveling in interstate commerce, and in Capitol Greyhound Lines, the tax in question was specifically levied on interstate and intrastate carriers for the privilege of using the roads of Maryland. Consequently, we find the foregoing citations of authority inapposite, and seek guidance instead from more recent Supreme Court decisions delineating definitive standards for determining whether a state tax infringes the Commerce Clause.
“In reviewing Commerce Clause challenges to state taxes,. . . [the] goal [of the Supreme Court] has . .. been to ‘establish a consistent and rational method of inquiry’ focusing on ‘the practical effect of a challenged tax’ Mobil Oil Corp. v. Commissioner of Taxes, 445 U.S. [12]*12425, 443 (1980).” Commonwealth Edison Co. v. Montana, 453 U.S. 609, 615 (1981). The analysis now favored by the Court is the four-part test described in Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U.S. 274 (1977). “Under that test, a state tax does not offend the Commerce Clause if it ‘is applied to an activity with a substantial nexus with the taxing State, is fairly apportioned, does not discriminate against interstate commerce, and is fairly related to services provided by the State.’ 430 U.S., at 279.” Commonwealth Edison Co. v. Montana, supra, 453 U.S. at 617. Aloha does not dispute that the Public Service Company Tax satisfies the first three prongs of the four-part test; it argues, as we have noted, that the tax falters on the final leg because the moneys exacted by the State are not expended for airport purposes. But Aloha’s belief in this regard does not reflect the Court’s views.
The Court customarily affords states wide latitude in imposing general revenue taxes, and “there is no requirement under the Due Process Clause that the amount of general revenue taxes collected from a particular activity must be reasonably related to the value of the services provided to the activity.” Id. at 622.10 Moreover, this latitude is not “divested by the Commerce Clause merely because the taxed activity has some connection to interstate commerce; particularly when the tax is levied on an activity conducted within the [13] State.” Id. at 623. For it was never “the purpose of the commerce clause to relieve those engaged in interstate commerce from their just share of state tax burden even though it increases the cost of doing the business.” Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, 303 U.S. 250, 254 (1938). And this share of the burden includes sharingin the cost of benefits such as “a trained work force and the advantages of a civilized society.” Japan Line, Ltd. v. County of Los Angeles, 441 U.S. 434, 445 (1979). We experience no difficulty in concluding that the imposition of Hawaii’s Phblic Service Company Tax on a Hawaii corporation engaged in business as an inter-island air carrier does not constitute an undue burden on commerce, and move on to the problems engendered by the Supremacy Clause.
IV.
A.
The Supremacy Clause provides that the “ ‘Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land ... any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.’ [U.S. Const.] Art. VI, cl. 2. It is basic to this constitutional command that all conflicting state provisions be without effect. See McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 427 (1819). See Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52(1941)." Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U.S. 725, 746 (1981). Yet there is no unerring test to determine just when a state provision is without effect by reason of preemption. As the Court teaches us,
[t]here is not — and from the very nature of the problem there cannot be — any rigid formula or rule which can be used as a universal pattern to determine the meaning and purpose of every act of Congress.. .. [The] Court, in considering the validity of state laws in the light of treaties or federal laws touching the same subject, has made use of the following expressions: conflicting; contrary to; occupying the field; repugnance; difference; irreconcilability; inconsistency; violation; curtailment; and interference. But none of these expressions provides an infallible constitutional test or an exclusive constitutional yardstick. In the final analysis, there can be no one crystal clear distinctly marked formula.
Hines v. Davidowitz, supra, 312 U.S. at 67 (footnote omitted).
[14] The preemption dispute of present concern implicates the State of Hawaii’s taxing power. It is fundamental that “[t]he power of taxation is indispensable to .. . [the] existence [of state governments], and is a power which, in its own nature, is capable of residing in, and being exercised by, different authorities, at the same time.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1, 199(1824).11 In this sense, it is like the police power. Hence, the “[consideration [of a state tax] under the Supremacy Clause starts with the basic assumption that Congress did not intend to displace state law. See Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218, 230 (1947).” Maryland v. Louisiana, supra, 451 U.S. at 746. For the historic powers of the states are “not to be superseded ... unless that. .. [is] the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.” Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., supra, 331 U.S. at 230. Or as the Court has otherwise stated,
[i]t will not be presumed that a federal statute was intended to [15] supersede the exercise of the power of the state unless there is a clear manifestation of intention to do so. The exercise of federal supremacy is not lightly to be presumed.
Schwartz v. Texas, 344 U.S. 199, 202-03 (1952).
Rice also recounts the several ways in which congressional design to supplant state provisions “may be evidenced,” namely:
The scheme of federal regulation may be so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for States to supplement it. Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Public Service Comm’n, 250 U.S. 566, 569; Cloverleaf Butter Co. v. Patterson, 315 U.S. 148. Or the Act of Congress may touch a field in which the federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject. Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52. Likewise, the object sought to be obtained by the federal law and the character of obligations imposed by it may reveal the same purpose. Southern R. Co. v. Railroad Commission, 236 U.S. 439; Charleston & W. C. R. Co. v. Varnville Co., 237 U.S. 597; New York Central R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U.S. 147; Napier v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., supra. Or the state policy may produce a result inconsistent with the objective of the federal statute. Hill v. Florida, 325 U.S. 538.
Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., supra, 331 U.S. at 230. And as the Court reiterates in Maryland v. Louisiana,
[o]f course, a state statute is void to the extent it conflicts with a federal statute — if, for example, “compliance with both federal and state regulations is a physical impossibility,” Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 142-143 (1963), or where the law “stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” Hines v. Davidowitz, supra, at 67.
Maryland v. Louisiana, supra, 451 U.S. at 747.
B.
Thus we carefully examine the statutes implicated in the present controversy to ascertain whether an unmistakable intent of Congress to displace the State law appears, mindful that there is no “infallible constitutional test” to determine congressional purpose, Hines v. Davidowitz, supra, 312 U.S. at 67, but knowing that there are, [16] nevertheless, several ways in which “[s]uch a purpose may be evidenced.” Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., supra, 331 U.S. at 230.
1.
We earlier observed that 49 U.S.C. § 1513 broadly forbids the levy by state and local governments of taxes or other charges on air commerce, yet permits the collection of a wide range of state and local taxes. But as we have also seen, the exercise of federal tax power in a particular field is not necessarily incompatible with a similar exercise of power by the states. What initially appears paradoxical in the federal statutory provisions actually tells us that the federal taxation of air transportation was not meant to nullify all state and local taxes related thereto. And if anything more may be gleaned from the enumerated exemptions in 49 U.S.C. § 1513(b), it is that the primary revenue sources of the states have been placed beyond the preemptive reach of § 1513(a).12
2.
Since an inference of a pervasive federal scheme or a dominant federal interest barring the collection of all state taxes touching air transportation cannot be drawn from the relevant statutory language, we consider whether “the object sought to be obtained by the federal law and the character of obligations imposed by it. . . reveal [17] ... [a] purpose” to cause state tax laws such as HRS § 239-6 to be without effect. Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., supra, 331 U.S. at 230.
The legislative history previously discussed confirms that the object of the pertinent provisions of the Airport Development Acceleration Act of 1973 was to protect the primary sources from which the Airport and Airway Revenue Act of 1970 sought revenue. See note 7 supra. These were, of course, the “[t]icket taxes on passengers and shippers ... imposed directly on the .. . passenger and freight users of the commercial sector of the aviation system.” See note 7 supra. See also note 9 supra and 26 U.S.C. §§ 4261 and 4271. The history further indicates a wellspring of annoyance contributing to the legislative action was the levy of “head” taxes on airline passengers by thirty-one state and local jurisdictions. S. Rep. 93-12, supra, at 21, [1973] U.S. CODE CONG. & AD. NEWS, supra, at 1450.13 The wrath of Congress was undoubtedly directed at an unpopular tax which “brings on confusion, delay, anger and resentment and cuts against the grain of the traditional American right to travel among the States unburdened by travel taxes.” S. Rep. 93-12, supra, at 17, [1973] U.S. CODE CONG. & AD. NEWS, supra, at 1446. But more significantly, these user charges also tapped the very sources of revenue that Congress had.
The State law, which antedates the Airport and Airway Revenue Act of 1970, imposes a tax on public service companies rather than the users of their services. The legislature has deemed the State levy “a means of taxing the personal property of the airline or other carrier, tangible and intangible, including going concern value.” HRS § 239-6. We would not quarrel with this legislative characterization; the tax has some attributes of a property tax. See note 14 infra. As our Territorial predecessors concluded, there is ample legal support for avoiding “the difficulties encountered in ad valorem assessments of the real and personal property of utilities ... by substituting a tax upon gross incomes from utilities from utility business, upon net income from the same source or both.” Hawaii Consolidated Railway v. Borthwick, supra, 34 Haw. at 280. For the [18] formula “give[s] effect to the intangible factors which influence real valúes.” Railway Express Agency v. Virginia, 347 U.S. 359, 364 (1954) (quoted with approval in Railway Express Agency v. Virginia, 358 U.S. 434, 442 (1959)). See also Illinois Central Railroad v. Minnesota, 309 U.S. 157 (1940).14
The object sought by the federal law therefore reveals nothing that would preclude the subjection of Aloha and Hawaiian to the Public Service Company Tax. Nor does the character of the obligations imposed by the Airport and Airway Revenue Act disclose anything that could cause the tax to be ineffective where airlines are concerned.
3.
What we said about the Public Service Company Tax in the preceding section would also apply to an inquiry on whether the state policy declared by HRS § 239-6 “may produce a result inconsistent with the objective of the federal statute.” Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., supra, 331 U.S. at 230. The State does not purport to “regulate” any aspect of air commerce pursuant to § 239-6. The levy in question is a revenue measure in all respects; it does not conflict with a federal regulatory scheme in the manner that the Louisiana First Use Tax on Natural Gas did with federal statutes regulating natural gas pricing. See Maryland v. Louisiana, supra. Furthermore, the state tax does not invade the particular area occupied by 26 U.S.C. §§ 4261 and 4271, i.e., “[tjicket taxes on passengers and shippers . .. imposed directly on the . . . passenger and freight users of the commercial sector of the aviation system.” See note 7 supra.
[19] Hugh Shearer (H. Mitchell D’Olier with him on the briefs; Goodsill, Anderson id Quinn, of counsel) for taxpayer-appellant Hawaiian Airlines.
Richard L. Griffith and Michael A. Shea (Ralph B. Palmer with them on opening brief; Roger H. Epstein with them on reply brief; Cades, Schutte, Fleming id Wright, of counsel) for taxpayer-appellant Aloha Airlines.
Kevin T. Wakayama, Deputy Attorney General, for Director of T axation-appellee.
DirkD. Srtel, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice. With him on the brief: Sanford Sagalkin, Acting Assistant Attorney General; Peter R. Steenland, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice; and Walter M. Heen, U.S. Attorney, Honolulu, Hawaii, for U.S. Department of Justice, amicus curiae.
4.
We perceive no irreconcilable conflict between regimes here. “[Compliance with both federal and state. . . [tax laws] is [definitely not] a physical impossibility.” Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, supra, 373 U.S. at 142-43, and HRS § 239-6 does not stand “as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” Hines v. Davidowitz, supra, 312 U.S. at 67.15 Our review thus uncovers no persuasive reasons supporting preemption here, and we can not say the nature of the federal and State taxes involved “permits no other conclusion, or that the Congress has unmistakably so ordained.” Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, supra, at 142.16
The decisions of the Tax Appeal Court are affirmed.