Mahoney v. State Tax Commission

524 P.2d 187, 96 Idaho 59, 1974 Ida. LEXIS 380
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 8, 1974
Docket11016
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 524 P.2d 187 (Mahoney v. State Tax Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mahoney v. State Tax Commission, 524 P.2d 187, 96 Idaho 59, 1974 Ida. LEXIS 380 (Idaho 1974).

Opinions

DONALDSON, Chief Justice.

The original plaintiff in this action was John George Mahoney, who sought to recover 784 cartons of cigarettes seized by the defendant-appellant Idaho State Tax Commission and to restrain the Commission iron interfering with the plaintiff’s cigarette-vending business. Subsequent to the filing of this action, the respondent Margaret Rose Mahoney acquired all interests in the confiscated property and was, therefore, substituted as plaintiff for John George Mahoney, as to whom the action was dismissed.

The respondent and her predecessor in interest are both members of the Coeur d’Alene Indian Tribe. On June 21, 1968, an agent of the Tax Commission seized the respondent’s cigarettes because they did not bear Idaho cigarette tax stamps. At the time of the seizure, the cigarettes were located at the respondent’s on-reservation tobacco shop and were being held for sale to both Indian and non-Indian purchasers. A substantial portion of the respondent’s sales were made to non-Indian members of the general public. The cigarettes seized by the State were purchased by the respondent in Spokane, Washington, and trans[61]*61ported to the reservation in the respondent’s personal automobile.

The respondent’s concession is located one mile north of Plummer, Idaho, just off U.S. Highway 95, a major north-south route through this state, carrying a large volume of daily traffic. The respondent’s business is a private enterprise in no way connected with tribal business, and its owner is not engaged in performing a tribal function.

Since the cigarettes seized by the Commission were perishable, the parties agreed that they should be sold and that the proceeds of sale ($1,484.15) should be held pending the outcome of the action.

Section 63-2503 of the Idaho Code provides that “[tjhere is hereby levied, and there shall be collected as hereinafter provided, a tax upon the retail sale of cigarettes.” Emphasis added. As amended in 1972, this section currently imposes this sales tax at the rate of %o of 1‡ per cigarette, or 90‡ per standard carton of 200 cigarettes. If the respondent’s sales are exempt from this tax, she would obviously have a 900-per-carton competitive advantage over vendors not located on Indian land.

The district court held that Idaho lacks jurisdiction to tax the on-reservation sale of cigarettes by Indians. Judgment was entered in favor of the respondent Indian for $1,484.15, plus interest and costs; in addition, the court permanently enjoined the Tax Commission from interfering with the operation of the respondent’s business. On appeal, the Tax Commission asserts that the cigarettes were seized only because they were being held for sale to non-Indians. The appellant disclaims any right to tax on-reservation sales by Indians to Indians. Nor does the appellant challenge the district court’s finding that the Coeur d’Alene Indian Tribe has never entered into any agreement consenting to the taxation of its members by the State of Idaho.

I.

During the pendency of this appeal, the Supreme Court of the United States vacated the judgment of the Washington Supreme Court in Tonasket v. State, 79 Wash.2d 607, 488 P.2d 281 (1971), relied upon by the appellant herein. Tonasket v. Washington, 411 U.S. 951, 93 S.Ct. 1941, 36 L.Ed.2d 385 (1973) (per curiam). In its decision in the case, the Washington Supreme Court held that the Washington cigarette tax could be applied to the on-reservation sale of cigarettes by an Indian, most of whose customers were non-Indians.1 In vacating the Washington judgment, the Supreme Court of the United States ordered the Supreme Court of Washington to reconsider its decision in light of the former’s recent unanimous decision in McClanahan v. State Tax Commission of Arizona, 411 U.S. 164, 93 S.Ct. 1257, 36 L.Ed.2d 129 (1973). The Supreme Court of the United States thereby indicated that the principles enunciated in McClanahan are applicable in cases such as this involving a state’s attempt to tax [62]*62on-reservation sales consummated by Indian sellers, even though McClanahan itself involved a state’s attempt to tax personal income earned by an Indian solely from reservation sources.

The holding of the Court in McClanahan is perhaps best described by the Supreme Court itself in Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U.S. 145, 93 S.Ct. 1267, 1270, 36 L.Ed.2d 115 (1973), released the same day as McClanahan:

“[I]n the special area of state taxation, absent cession of jurisdiction or other federal statutes permitting it, there has been no satisfactory authority for taxing Indian reservation lands or Indian income from activities carried on within the boundaries of the reservation, and McClanahan v. State Tax Commission of Arizona, 411 U.S. 164, 93 S.Ct. 1257, 36 L.Ed.2d 129, lays to rest any doubt in this respect by holding that such taxation is not permissible absent congressional consent.”

II.

The federal government’s authority over Indian matters derives from the Federal Constitution’s delegation to it of responsibility for regulating commerce with Indian tribes and for making treaties. McClanahan v. State Tax Comm’n of Arizona, supra, 411 U.S. 164, 93 S.Ct. at 1262 n. 7, 36 L.Ed.2d 129; U.S.Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 3; Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. Under Article I, section 8, clause 3 of the United States Constitution, the Congress has the power “[t]o regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Emphasis added.

It is beyond dispute that the Commerce Clause would preclude the imposition of Idaho sales tax upon sales which are consummated in a sister state. Evco v. Jones, 409 U.S. 91, 93 S.Ct. 349, 34 L.Ed.2d 325 (1972) (per curiam); McLeod v. J. E. Dilworth Co., 322 U.S. 327, 64 S.Ct. 1023, 88 L.Ed. 1304 (1944). For Idaho to impose a tax on such transactions “would be to project its powers beyond its boundaries and to tax an interstate transaction.” McLeod v. J. E. Dilworth Co., supra, 322 U.S. at 330, 64 S.Ct. at 1025. As the United States Supreme Court went on to say in McLeod:

“[A] tax on an interstate sale like the one before us [unlike a use tax] involves an assumption of power by a State which the Commerce Clause was meant to end. The very purpose of the Commerce Clause was to create an area of free trade among the several States. That clause vested the power of taxing a transaction forming an unbroken process of interstate commerce in the Congress, not in the States.” 322 U.S. at 330-331, 64 S.Ct. at 1026.

Of course, the McLeod

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Bluebook (online)
524 P.2d 187, 96 Idaho 59, 1974 Ida. LEXIS 380, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mahoney-v-state-tax-commission-idaho-1974.