Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/444

408 4o8 HARVARD LAW REVIEW Only two more cases on gross-receipts taxes remain to be con- sidered. Both were decided during the 191 7 term of court. The Wisconsin demand in issue in Northwestern Life Insurance Co. v. Wisconsin ^^^ was in lieu of all others except taxes on real estate, and was sustained as a commutation tax. Income from real estate was not included in the assessment. The court did not find "it necessary to decide whether the so-called foreign investment busi- ness of the company does or does not of itself amount to interstate commerce," 135. since it held that, "if it amounts to commerce of that character no burden is cast upon it by such tax as is here involved, since the gross receipts coming from that character of business are used only as a measure of the value of the property and franchise lawfully taxable in the State." ^^ The Supreme Court ^accepted the state court's "views of the nature and effect of the law," recognizing that they were not con- clusive upon it, but finding "no reason to reject them." ^'^ Touch- ing the effect of the tax, the state court had found that it did not appear from the allegations in the complaint "that the plaintiff now pays substantially greater sums than it would pay under either the income taxation system or the former personal property taxation system." "^ The rate of levy was three per cent. Noth- ing in the decision or the opinion closes the door to future conten- tions that the effect of a gross-receipts tax on selected property or businesses or corporations is to impose disproportionate burdens on interstate commerce and so to amount to a regulation of that commerce "in a constitutional sense." There is every reason to be- might impose a hardship, but only that those excise laws whose general operation is confiscatory and oppressive are unconstitutional" (Ibid., 589). Mr. Justice Pitney added that it is not "to be inferred that the franchises of plaintiffs in error are value- less merely because it appears that the present earnings of the railroads are not suffi- cient to pay more than can be derived from legitimate high-grade investment securi- ties that are readily available on the market, or (in the case of one of the roads) are not even sufficient to pay operating expenses. Upon this point we are content to refer to, without repeating, the language employed by Mr. Justice Miller, speaking for this coxu-t in State Railroad Tax Cases, 92 U. S. 575, 606." 1" 247 U. S. 132, 38 Sup. Ct. Rep. 373 (1918). 135 Ibid., 138. ^ Ibid., 138. "^ Ibid., 137. "* Ibid., 137.