Underwood Typewriter Co. v. Chamberlain

Citations

• 254 U.S. 113
• 41 S. Ct. 45
• 65 L. Ed. 165
• 1920 U.S. LEXIS 1213

Syllabus

<p>1. A state tax upon the proportion of the net profits of a sister-state corporation earned by operations conducted within the taxing State, the enforcement of which is left to the ordinary means of collecting taxes, does not violate Art. I, § 8, of the Federal Constitution by imposing a burden upon interstate commerce. P. 119.</p> <p>2. In considering whether a state tax, purporting to be on the net income of a sister-state corporation earned within the taxing State, violates the Fourteenth Amendment by reaching income earned outside, it is not necessary to decide whether it is a direct tax on income or an excise measured by income. P. 120.</p> <p>3. A state tax upon the income of a sister-state corporation manufacturing its product within the State but deriving the greater part, of its receipts from sales outside the State, which attributes to processes 'condücted within, the State the, proportion of the total net income which the value of real arid tangible personal property owned by the corporation within the State bears to the value of all its real and tangible personal property, is not inherently unreasonable and calculated to tax income earned beyond the borders of the State; and, unless it be shown to be so in its application to the particular ease, cannot be held to violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 120.</p> <p>4. Held, that the fact that the amount of net income so allocated to the taxing State greatly exceeded in this case the portion actually received there, does not prove that income earned outside was included in the assessment.</p> <p>5. The principle discussed in Southern By. Co. v. Greene, 216 U. S. 400, 414, respecting the right of a State under the Fourteenth Amendment to impose discriminatory taxes on a sister-state corporation which had made large permanent investments in railroad property in the State before the tax law was enacted, is inapplicable to this case, involving'a non-discriminatory tax on the locally ea