Monamotor Oil Co v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 02 April 1934 |
| Docket Number | No. 555,555 |
| Citation | 54 S.Ct. 575,292 U.S. 86,78 L.Ed. 1141 |
| Parties | MONAMOTOR OIL CO. v. JOHNSON, State Treasurer of Iowa, et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Licenses k7(2).
Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Iowa.
[Syllabus from pages 86-88 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Paul E. Roadifer, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, M. D. Kirk, of Tulsa, Okl., and George S. Wright, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, for appellant.
Mr. L. W. Powers, of Denison, Iowa, for appellees.
The appellant filed a bill in the District Court for Southern Iowa, seeking a declaration that the laws of Iowa laying a tax on motor vehicle fuel violate state and federal constitutional provisions, and an injunction against their enforcement by state officers. A temporary injunction issued, but a court of three judges, upon final hearing, dismissed the suit.1 The case is here on direct appeal.
The General Assembly of the state, in order to raise revenue for the improvement of highways, imposed a license fee of two cents per gallon on all motor vehicle fuel 'used or otherwise disposed of in this state for any purpose whatsoever'; and directed that 'Any person using motor vehicle fuel within the state shall be liable for the fee herein provided for unless the same shall have been previously paid.'2 By a later statute an additional license fee of one cent per gallon was imposed.3 The law (Code Iowa 1931, § 5093-a2 et seq.) defines 'distributor' as 'any person who brings into the state or who produces, refines, manufactures or compounds within the state any motor vehicle fuel to be used within the state or sold or otherwise disposed of by him within the state for use in the state.' 'Person' is defined to include partnerships, corporations, and associations. One who sells at retail is required to keep posted in a public place a placard showing the total sale price per gallon, including license fee, and to have printed on the placard the words, 'state license fee included.' It is declared unlawful to conduct the business of a distributor unless a certificate giving certain information is filed with the state treasurer and a license is procured permitting the conduct of that business. Every distributor is required on or before the twentieth day of each calendar month to file with the state treasurer a report showing the total number of gallons imported by him during the preceding calendar month, with details as to each shipment, and at the same time to remit to the treasurer the amount of the license fee for such preceding month; he may, however, deduct 3 per cent. of the gallonage for evaporation and loss. If after the fee is remitted the fuel is destroyed by casualty not due to the fault of the distributor, before being sold or used, a refund of the tax paid thereon is to be made by the state treasurer. The act declares that its provisions are not to apply to foreign or interstate commerce. (As distributors import gasoline into Iowa for reshipment to other states, the state treasurer has, in the administration of the acts, permitted a deduction in the monthly reports of any gasoline so sold and reshipped to points outside the state.)
There is provision that one using fuel purchased for a purpose other than for a motor vehicle may, upon making claim upon the state treasurer in proper form and in due time, obtain a refund of the amount of the tax paid in respect of it.
A penalty of 10 per cent. of the amount of the tax is imposed upon a distributor who fails to remit on or before the twentieth of the month following the importation. The Attorney General is empowered to bring action on behalf of the state against any distributor who is in default for thirty days in payment of tax. The state treasurer is authorized to revoke the license of a distributor who fails to render the prescribed reports, or renders a false report, or fails to pay the license fee when due, and he need not renew the license until satisfied that the applicant will in future comply with the law. Distributors are required to permit inspection of their books, records, papers, invoices, and equipment. It is made a misdemeanor for a distributor or any principal officer to refuse to submit the prescribed reports and certificates to the treasurer, or to refuse an examination of books, records, and equipment by the treasurer or his representatives, or to violate other provisions.4
The appellant is an Arizona corporation whose business is the buying, manufacturing, blending, and selling of gasoline and kindred products, including the importation into Iowa of gasoline by tank cars, trucks, and other con- tainers, for resale to consumers and to dealers who sell to consumers, and the exportation of gasoline to other states; the maintenance of storage facilities in Iowa, from which deliveries are made in that and other states, and the maintenance of a refinery at Carter Lake, Iowa, where gasoline is blended and compounded and shipped to points in Iowa and other states. Prior to April, 1932, gasoline was refined at this plant. The corporation maintains numerous service stations in Iowa which sell to consumers. Upon the filing of a certificate with the state treasurer the company received a distributor's license; and between May, 1927, and May, 1932, paid to the state treasurer monthly, in accordance with the reports rendered, many thousand dollars as license fees. There was included in the amount so reported and paid a tax at the rate of three cents per gallon on gasoline imported into Iowa and gasoline refined and manufactured at the refinery at Carter Lake. No question seems to have been raised as to the applicability and validity of the statute until about May, 1932. At that time a controversy arose out of the following facts:
Carter Lake, Iowa, where the appellant's refinery is located, now lies on the west shore of the Missouri river, not far from Omaha, Neb. It was originally on the east side of the river, the interstate boundary. By an avulsion the stream changed its course to the east of Carter Lake, but the old bed remained the interstate boundary. The refinery ships large quantities of gasoline to points in Nebraska and also to points in Iowa. The question arising whether the appellant should report gasoline which was ultimately distributed in Iowa upon its arrival at Carter Lake, or its manufacture there, or when it was shipped from Carter Lake to other points in Iowa, the state treasurer and the appellant agreed that importations into Carter Lake need not be treated as im- portations into Iowa, but when gasoline arriving at Carter Lake or there manufactured should be shipped to other points in Iowa, it should be treated as then imported into the state for the purpose of report and payment of the tax by the appellant. This arrangement was made for the convenience of the parties.
Prior to May, 1932, the appellant shipped forty tank cars of gasoline from the refinery at Carter Lake to destinations in Iowa, for sale and use there. Its employees and agents altered the invoices and waybills on these shipments so as to show 'gas-oil' instead of gasoline, and omitted to report them to the state treasurer, or to pay tax upon them, as should have been done in accordance with the arrangement mentioned. When the state treasurer called appellant's attention to the falsification of its reports the representatives of the company for the first time asserted that as gasoline moving from Carter Lake to other points in Iowa had to pass through Nebraska the shipments were interstate, and a tax on them would be a burden upon interstate commerce. The state treasurer, having confirmed the facts by an audit of the company's books, caused the appellant and certain of its officers to be indicted for making a false return, procured the Attorney General to bring a civil action against the appellant by attachment to recover the unpaid tax on gasoline imported and used within the state, and notified the appellant that he had revoked its license as a distributor. The individual defendants pleaded guilty and were fined, and the indictment was dismissed, as to the company. The civil suit was pending when the present bill was filed, asserting the invalidity of the law, and praying that the state treasurer and other officials be enjoined from interfering with the conduct of appellant's business as a distributor, from collecting the taxes imposed by the statutes, and from prosecuting the civil action in the state court.
The District Court, whose jurisdiction was invoked by reason of diversity of citizenship as well as the alleged conflict of the state statutes and the Federal Constitution, dismissed the bill. The decision is challenged for several reasons, but we are of opinion that it was proper.
1. The amendatory act by which an additional tax of one cent per gallon was imposed is said to violate provisions of the Iowa Constitution respecting the title and the substance of taxing laws. The District Court examined these contentions and found them without merit. We concur in its conclusions.
2. There is no substance in...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State ex rel Rice, Atty.-Gen. v. Allen
... ... be strictly construed ... Hopkins ... v. Sandridge, 31 Miss. 668; McKenzie v. Boykin, 111 ... Miss. 256, 71 So. 382; Johnson v. Reeves Grocery ... Co., 112 Miss. 227, 72 So. 925; Bullock v ... Sneed, 13 S. & M. 293; Glen v. Thistle, 23 ... Miss. 42; Rucker v. Dyer, ... United States in Pierce Oil Corporation v. Hopkins, ... 264 U.S. 137, 44 S.Ct. 251, 68 L.Ed. 593, and Monamotor ... Oil Co. v. Johnson, [180 Miss. 674] 292 U.S. 86, 54 ... S.Ct. 575, 78 L.Ed. 1141. See, also, Heriot v ... Pensacola, 108 Fla. 480, 146 So ... ...
-
Nelson v. Sears, Roebuck Co
...imposition of such a duty, however, was held not to be an unconstitutional burden on a foreign corporation in Monamotor Oil Co. v. Johnson, 292 U.S. 86, 54 S.Ct. 575, 78 L.Ed. 1141, and Felt & Tarrant Mfg. Co. v. Gallagher, 306 U.S. 62, 59 S.Ct. 376, 83 L.Ed. 488. But respondent insists tha......
-
Confederated Tribes of Colville v. State of Wash.
...586, 85 L.Ed. 888 (1941); Henneford v. Silas Mason Co., 300 U.S. 577, 57 S.Ct. 524, 81 L.Ed. 814 (1937); Monamotor Oil Co. v. Johnson, 292 U.S. 86, 54 S.Ct. 575, 78 L.Ed. 1141 (1934). In Moe, 425 U.S. at 481 n. 17, 96 S.Ct. at 1645, the Court made it clear that after Mescalero and McClanaha......
-
Miller Bros Co v. State of Maryland
...53 S.Ct. 345, 77 L.Ed. 730; Edelman v. Boeing Air Transport, Inc., 289 U.S. 249, 53 S.Ct. 591, 77 L.Ed. 1155; Monamotor Oil Co. v. Johnson, 292 U.S. 86, 54 S.Ct. 575, 78 L.Ed. 1141; Henneford v. Silas Mason Co., 300 U.S. 577, 57 S.Ct. 524, 81 L.Ed. 814. See also footnote 20. 15. People of S......
-
Colorado Sales and Use Taxes in the Multistate Context
...the First Amendment). 9. CRS § 39-26-104, 39-26-202. 10. Henneford v. Silas Mason Co., 300 U.S. 577 (1937); Monamotor Oil Co. v. Johnson, 292 U.S. 86 (1934). 11. CRS § 39-26-104(1)(a). 12. CRS § 39-26-114(1)(a)(III). 13. CRS §§ 39-26-104, 39-26-103, 39-26-102(3)(a); 1 C.C.R. 201-4 §§ 26-102......