Caskey Baking Co v. Commonwealth of Virginia
| Decision Date | 28 April 1941 |
| Docket Number | No. 676,676 |
| Citation | 85 L.Ed. 1223,61 S.Ct. 881,313 U.S. 117 |
| Parties | CASKEY BAKING CO., Inc., v. COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. R. Gray Williams, of Winchester, Va., and Clarence E. Martin, of Martinsburg, W. Va., for appellant.
Mr. Abram P. Staples, of Richmond, Va., for appellee.
The appellant, a corporation of West Virginia, has its principal office and place of business in Martinsburg in that State. As a foreign corporation registered in Virginia it has paid the latter State an annual re istration fee and an income tax on its net profits allocable to its Virginia business. It makes bread which it sells to grocers and other retailers in territory adjacent to Martinsburg including Winchester and other places in Virginia. Appellant's trucks carry the bread into Virginia where they serve regular routes at regular intervals. The drivers call only on regular customers, inquire of each how much bread he needs and, in response to his order, take it from the truck and deliver it to the customer. Thus each such transaction in Virginia is a sale and delivery in that State to a regular customer.
The company has no property permanently located in Virginia and no place of business in the State, except that, as required by the statute respecting registered foreign corporations, it maintains an office in the State where claims against it may be audited, settled, and paid.
The appellant was convicted for making a sale in Virginia without having procured a license pursuant to § 192b1 of the Tax Code of Virginia, and a fine was imposed. The Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction.2
So far as material the statute provides: The annual fee is $100 for each vehicle used in the business.
It is admitted that appellant was not a manufacturer taxable on its capital stock, nor a distributor of manufactured products paying a state license tax on its purchases, nor a licensed wholesale dealer, and did not, therefore, come within any of the classes exempted by the Act.
In the State courts, and here, the appellant challenged the statute as contravening the commerce clause and the equal protection clause of the Federal Constitution. Its position is that it is doing either an interstate business which the State may not burden by imposing a license tax, or an intrastate business as to which the exaction works a forbidden discrimination. We hold both contentions untenable.
1. While the transportation of bread across the State line is interstate commerce, that is not the activity which is licensed or taxed. The purely local business of peddling is what the Act hits, and this irrespective of the source of the goods sold. It is settled that such a statute imposes no burden upon interstate commerce which the Constitution interdicts.3 The appellant, however, urges that the Act discriminates against interstate commerce by exempting from its operation the privilege of sales by manufacturers paying tax on their capital employed in manufacture in Virginia. It is said that if its bakery were situate in Virginia the appellant would have the benefit of this exemption and, since it is not, the marketing of appellant's goods shipped into the State is the target of a hostile discrimination. But the argument overlooks the fact that peddlers resident in Virginia who buy their goods within the State, or buy or procure them from extrastate cources, are alike subject to the Act. The contention that the Act discriminates against interstate commerce by virtue of the exemption in question is negatived by our decisions.4
2. Examination of the Tax Code of Virginia discloses that the Act in question is but one portion of a comprehensive scheme of taxation. Manufacturers who sell their own products pay a tax on capital, which the State deems sufficient to cover all their activities, including the vending of the...
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