Mercury Motor Express, Inc. v. South Carolina Tax Commission

135 S.E.2d 756, 244 S.C. 134, 1964 S.C. LEXIS 68
CourtSupreme Court of South Carolina
DecidedApril 9, 1964
Docket18194
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 135 S.E.2d 756 (Mercury Motor Express, Inc. v. South Carolina Tax Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of South Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mercury Motor Express, Inc. v. South Carolina Tax Commission, 135 S.E.2d 756, 244 S.C. 134, 1964 S.C. LEXIS 68 (S.C. 1964).

Opinion

Bussey, Justice.

The plaintiff-appellant is a Florida corporation with its principal office in Tampa, Florida, and is a common carrier of freight for compensation by motor vehicles in interstate commerce, operating in the states along the eastern seaboard, including South Carolina, from Florida to Massachusetts. Appellant is domesticated and qualified to do business in the State of South Carolina but is not engaged in and is not authorized to engage in the transportation of intrastate freight in the State of South Carolina or any of the other several states through which it operates.

In 1960 the respondent, pursuant to the proportionate mileage formula provided by Section 65-256 of the 1952 Code of Laws of South Carolina, assessed the appellant for income taxes for the years 1955 through 1959, in the total amount of $20,753.11, which tax was paid by the appellant under protest, this action being timely and properly commenced to recover the same. The cause was heard below on an agreed stipulation of facts and resulted in a decree by the circuit court dismissing appellant’s action.

The pertinent provisions of the Code Section provide that when a public service corporation’s business is in part within and in part without the State of South Carolina, its net income within the state shall be ascertained by taking its gross operating revenues within South Carolina, includ[137]*137ing within such gross operating revenues within the jurisdiction of this state, the equal mileage proportion within the jurisdiction of South Carolina of its total interstate business, and deducting from such gross operating revenues the proportionate average of expenses or operating ratio for the whole business, computed in accordance with the Interstate Commerce Commission Standard Classification of Accounts.

During the years in question appellant transported freight in interstate commerce originating in and delivered to points in South Carolina, such freight being picked up or delivered on over the road equipment of appellant, or picked up and delivered by local cartage companies, or interlined with other motor highway common carriers. During a substantial portion of the period of time involved appellant leased and/or operated a terminal in Lexington County and owned personal property within the State of South Carolina consisting of a tractor used to move trailers on the terminal lot, and a service truck used to pick up parts and service over the road equipment on the highways in the event of breakdown.

The revenue of appellant from freight originating in or delivered to South Carolina amounted to only slightly more than one per cent of appellant’s gross revenue, while the proportion of its mileage in South Carolina amounted to slightly more than seventeen per cent of its total mileage, upon which latter percentage the income tax of appellant was assessed.

Appellant does not contend that Code Section 65-256 is unconstitutional per se, or that the assessment was not in correct accordance therewith. Nor does appellant question the power of the state to tax the net income of a foreign corporation from business done in the state, which is solely interstate in character, where the net income is fairly related to and connected with the activities in the state, and where the net income is fairly proportioned to the corpo[138]*138rate business activity done or performed within the taxing state.

Apropos of the last mentioned proposition is the following quote from the order of the circuit court:

“Since the early part of the century, numerous Courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, have held that there is nothing unconstitutional in a state’s taxing net income from a business engaged in interstate commerce. The cases hold that the levy must not be discriminatory and that it be properly apportioned to activities in the taxing state forming sufficient nexus or jurisdiction to support the levy. United States Glue Co. v. Oak Creek, 24[7] U. S. 321, 38 S. Ct. 499 [62 L. Ed. 1135]; Shaffer v. Carter, 252 U. S. 37, 40 S. Ct. 221 [64 L. Ed. 445]; Travis v. Gale [Yale] and Towne Manufacturing Co., 252 U. S. 60, 40 S. Ct. 228 [64 L. Ed. 460]; Underwood Typewriter Co. v. Chamberlain, 254 U. S. 113, 41 S. Ct. 45 [65 L. Ed. 165]; Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton v. State Tax Commission, 266 U. S. 271, 45 S. Ct. 82 [69 L. Ed. 282]; E. T. and W. N. C. Transportation Co. v. Currie, 248 N. C. 560, 104 S. E. (2d) 403, aff. [359 U. S. 28] 79 S. Ct. 602 [3 L. Ed. (2d) 625]; Maxwell v. Kent-Coffey Mfg. Co., 204 N. C. 365, 168 S. E. 397, aff. [291 U. S. 642] 54 S. Ct. 437 [78 L. Ed. 1040]; and Williams v. Stockholm Valves and Fittings, Inc., and Northwestern States Portland Cement Co. v. Minnesota, (reported together) 358 U. S. 450, 79 S. Ct. 357, 3 L. Ed. (2d) 421, 67 A. L. R. (2d) 1292.”

The last above cited case and the annotation thereof contain comprehensive discussions of the development of the law on the subject and the principles which are, we think, properly applicable to the decision of this controversy.

The appellant simply contends that the application of the mileage formula, under the circumstances, produced arbitrary, discriminatory and unconstitutional results, in violation of the commerce clause of Article I, Section 8, and the [139]*139due process phrase of Section 1, of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and in violation of Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution of South Carolina.

Appellant admits its liability to South Carolina for income tax on approximately one per cent of its net income derived from freight picked up or delivered in South Carolina, but contends that the application of the statutory mileage formula resulting in the taxation of approximately seventeen per cent of its net income, as opposed to one per cent thereof, has the effect of taxing appellant’s net income earned beyond the borders of South Carolina, and income that is in noway connected with or attributed to any activities of appellant within the State of South Carolina.

An identical mileage formula was applied and upheld in the case of Norfolk and Western Railway Co. v. State of North Carolina, ex rel. Maxwell, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 297 U. S. 682, 56 S. Ct. 625, 80 L. Ed. 977. There the United States Supreme Court, while upholding the validity of the formula and assessment, said that a formula which was not arbitrary or unconstitutional on its face, or in its general application, might be unreasonable or unfair when applied to a particular state of facts, and that if such were made to appear, with an ensuing burden on the taxpayer grossly in excess of the results of a more accurate apportionment of income, the statute to that extent would be an unconstitutional endeavor to tax the income of a business -in another jurisdiction.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Directv, Inc. v. S.C. Dep't of Revenue
804 S.E.2d 633 (Court of Appeals of South Carolina, 2017)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
135 S.E.2d 756, 244 S.C. 134, 1964 S.C. LEXIS 68, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mercury-motor-express-inc-v-south-carolina-tax-commission-sc-1964.