Summary of Case Laws - Essay Example

Summary of Case Laws Michelin Tire Company is a company, which deals with the manufacturing of tires and distributing them to many of its warehouses in the world. One of its distribution warehouses is located in Gwinnett County, Georgia where it receives the imported tires from France and Nova Scotia for later distribution. In the case of Michelin Tire Corporation V. Wages, the court levied a nondiscriminatory ad valorem property tax on goods, which was a certain percentage of the company’s value. Michelin Tire Company made a claim in court that the contents of the warehouses were constitutionally free from taxation by the state since they were in their original containers. However, the court declared the products were subject to taxation since they had been sorted and arranged for sale. In this case, the Supreme Court abandoned a century of precedents by declaring that the import and export clause does not hinder a state from imposing a nondiscriminatory ad valorem property tax on imported goods. The court further clarified that the provision, which bared the state from imposing duties or levies on imports or exports never, intended to prohibit such levies. The Supreme Court quotes case laws involving Low versus Austin and states that the cases were wrongly decided. The courts therefore obviated examinations of the principal issues that the parties had briefed. From the above case law, we can learn that, since proscription of unbiased ad valorem property taxation could not advance the aims and objectives of the import and export clause, it is only the strongest constitutional order should lead to a disapproval of such taxation, and the Clause's terminology and the clauses, imports or duties were ambiguous. This is because they did not warrant a presumption, which was intended to embrace taxation. The court therefore increased restrictions to the state requiring the state to avoid biasness by making restrictions on some business for tax that they should remit to the government. Another similar court case involved Complete Auto Transit versus Brady in 1977. Complete Auto Transit was a Michigan based corporation that conducted its main businesses from Mississippi. The company dealt with importing cars and distributing them into the state of Mississippi. In this case, the court in Mississippi imposed tax on transportation companies for doing business in the state. The new imposed taxes would then be distributed equally to other businesses, which dealt with intra-and inter-state commerce. In a unanimous decision by the court, it found out the taxation imposed to be invalid. The court argued that business dealing with interstate commerce should assume an equal and just way of sharing the state burden. Similar to the first case law, the court ruling in this case increased restrictions to the state requiring the state to avoid biasness by making restrictions on some business for tax that they should remit to the government. Moreover, the court’s decision established four main criteria to be used in order to determine whether the state tax is valid or not. Moreover, the four established criteria’s would enable the people as well as the state to recognize unreasonable state tax burden on interstate trade. The four main criteria given concerning this case notes that, the state tax burden must be an activity that connects people to the state. Moreover, the state tax law must be fairly distributed to be based on intrastate commerce. Besides, the state tax law must be nondiscriminatory among the business community of Mississippi. Lastly, the court established that state tax law must relate to the states services provided. However, these criteria’s are only applicable if the congress has not formed other criteria is which would conflict with the regulations. A new but similar court case involved Quill Corporation versus the State of North Dakota in 1922. In this case, the State of North Dakota had imposed a use tax on those properties, which were purchased for storage, use, or to consumed within the state. The state of Dakota had also formed a statute, which required every retailor in the state who maintained a place of business to collect taxes from the retailers and consumers in the state and remit them to the state. The term retailor maintaining a place of business in this case was later in 1987 redefined to refer to every person who engaged in regular business or logical solicitation of a consumer market in the state. Moreover, the state redefined logical solicitation to refer to three or more advertisements within an annual time. In this case Quill Company, which was incorporated in Delaware, North Dakota, had offices and warehouses in three other locations but not in North Dakota or even employees who worked or lived in the state. The company had an annual sale of more than $1,000,000 to 3000 of its customers in the state. This means that the company conducted business by delivering mails and merchandises to its customers in North Dakota. Moreover, the company also engaged in soliciting catalogs and flyers, which were sent to the company’s customers in North Dakota. In this case, law, the mail house alleged that the company was not to be governed by the use of the state statute since it was in contrast to the Federal Constitution's commerce clause (Art I, 8, cl 3) and the due process clause of the Federal Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment. In this case, the court ruled that state of North Dakota had failed to establish a sufficient nexus between the mail order house and the state. In a reverse appeal by the high court, the court ruled that the commerce clause and the due process clause needed a physical presence nexus with the state as required to the legitimate exercise of the state law over an out of state retailor. Moreover, the Supreme Court made a ruling that Quill Corporation’s commercial existence in North Dakota relied on services and benefits provided by the state. Search services and benefits includes making an economic climate that raised demand for the Quill Corporation’s products, upholding a legal infrastructure that protected that market, and disposing of the 24 tons of hard waste created yearly by the Quill Corporation’s activities. Similarly, to the above case laws, the court made a ruling that the state ought to create a constitutionally adequate nexus to validate imposition of the burden to collect the use tax. This is similar to the above case laws where the court made a ruling, which increased restrictions to the state demanding the state to avoid biasness, by making limitations on some business for tax that they should pay to the government. The last analogous case involved Oregon Waste Systems versus Department of Environmental Quality of the State of Oregon in 1944. In this case, the US Supreme Court made a decision that is concentrated on the aspect of power of the state and the interpretation of the commerce clause, which tends to give limitations to the states regulatory power. In the case, the Supreme Court in the United States made considerations whether Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's made-up cost-based surcharge on the sale of out-of-state waste materials dishonored the latent business clause. In a ruling made by the Supreme Court, the court ruled in favor of Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's by stating that the state of Oregon surcharge was not valid under the negative commerce clause. This means that the ruling favored in-state commercial welfares over out-of-state equivalents. Moreover, it meant that the ruling by the state of Oregon was discriminatory to outside states since it imposed charges three times higher than those offered in the state did. So that the ruling by the state of Oregon to be considered valid, it would have to be justified as compensatory. This means that it would make out of state shippers to pay a fair share of the cost of disposal. This also means that an equitable standard of measure should be implemented for in-state- shipping. In this regard, the company charged charge a figure of $0.85 for all shipping companies in state as opposed to $2.25 for out-state shipping companies. While quoting a previous case, the Supreme Court indicated that such a surcharge was acceptable if the surcharge were founded on increased costs precisely related with out-of-state waste. While ruling in this case, the court augmented restrictions to the state necessitating the state to avoid leniency by making limitations on the tax that some businesses should pay to the state (Klass 10). Works Cited Klass, Gregory . Contract Law in the United States of America. New York: Kluwer Law International, 2010. Print. Read More