New York Ex Rel. Hatch v. Reardon
Citations
- 204 U.S. 152
- 27 S. Ct. 188
- 51 L. Ed. 415
- 1907 U.S. LEXIS 1536
Syllabus
<p>The rule that the general expressions of the Fourteenth Amendment must not be allowed to upset familiar and'long established methods is applicable to stamp taxes which are necessarily confined to certain classes of transactions, -which, in some points of view are similar to classes that escape.</p> <p>Whether a tax on transfers of stock is equivalent, to a tax on the stock itself depends on the scope of the constitutional provision involved and whatever may be the rights of parties engaged in interstate commerce, a sale depends in part on the laws of the State where made and that State may make the parties pay for the help of its laws.</p> <p>There must be a fixed mode of ascertaining a stamp tax, and equality in the sense of actual value has to yield to practical considerations and usage.</p> <p>Although a statute, unconstitutional as to one, is void as to all. of a class, the party setting up, in' this court, the unconstitutionality of a state tax law must belong to the class for whose sake the constitutional protection is given, or the class primarily protected.</p> <p>The protection of the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution is not available to defeat a state stamp tax law on transactions wholly within a State because they affect property without that State, or because one or both of the parties previously came from other States.</p> <p>The tax of two cents a share imposed on transfers of stock, made within that State, by the tax law of New York of 1905, does not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as an arbitrary discrimination because only imposed on transfers of stock, or because based on par, and not market, value; nor does it deprive non-resident owners of stock transferring, in New York, shares of stock of non-resident corporations of their property without due process of law; nor is it as to such transfers of stock an interference with interstate commerce.</p>
How courts have described this case
Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.
- describing “poll tax” as a “tax of a fixed sum, irrespective of income or earning capacity” (emphasis added)
- expressing concern that “it may be more or less of a speculation to inquire what exceptions the state court may read into general words, or how far it may sustain an act that partially fails”
- \[A]n agency's interpretation of its own regulations is controlling unless plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulations being interpreted.\ (internal quotation marks omitted)
- dissenting opinion of Frankfurter, J., joined by Clark, J.
Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).
Judges: Holmes
Read full opinion on CourtListenerSourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).
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