U.S. Supreme Court BINGAMAN v. GOLDEN EAGLE WESTERN LINES, 297 U.S. 626 (1936)

[Page 297 U.S. 626, 629]

court crew a sharp distinction between the excise tax on the sale and that on the use of gasoline, holding the first to be valid and the second to be repugnant to the commerce clause of the federal Constitution as applied to an interstate air carrier. Both cases definitely refused to accept the view that the tax was a charge for the use of the highways.

Appellants contend that the refund provisions of the later 1931 statute, supra, nevertheless, demonstrate that the state legislature intended that the excise tax now in question should constitute compensation for the use of the highways. But the so-called refund provisions apply only in the case of taxes collected upon the purchase of gasoline, not of taxes collected for its use. Moreover, the state court in the Lujan Case, 36 N.M. 64, at page 74, 8 P.(2d) 103, considered a like contention and rejected it as without substance.

As applied to appellee, an interstate carrier doing no intrastate business of any description, section 3 of the act, which exacts license fees from distributors, is plainly invalid as imposing a direct burden upon interstate commerce. Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U.S. 47, 58, 59 S., 11 S. Ct. 851; International Textbook Co. v. Pigg, , 108-113, 30 S.Ct. 481, 27 L.R.A.(N.S.) 493, 18 Ann.Cas. 1103

Decree affirmed.