Locomobile Co. Of Am. v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 246 U.S. 146 (1918).
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Locomobile Co. Of Am. v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 246 U.S. 146 (1918). Book View Copy Cite
Locomobile Company of America
v.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
734.
Supreme Court of the United States.
Oct 19, 1918.
246 U.S. 146
Mr. Charles A. Snow, with whom Mr. Frank T. Benner and Mr. William P. Everts were on the brief, for plaintiff in error., Mr. William Harold Hitchcock, Assistant Attorney General of the State of Massachusetts, with whom Mr. Henry C. Atbwill, Attorney General of the State of Massachusetts, was on the brief, for defendant in error.
Van Devanter.
Cited by 17 opinions  |  Published
Mr. Justice Van Devanter

delivered the opinion of the court.

An excise tax of $1,300 imposed on a West Virginia corporation for doing a local business in Massachusetts during the year 1915 is here in question. The state court sustained it. 228 Massachusetts, 117. The corporation is engaged in manufacturing in Connecticut and sells its manufactured articles extensively in interstate commerce. It does both an interstate and a local business in Massachusetts. Each is of considerable volume, but the inter [*147] state is much the larger, although this is not material. The tax is of a designated per cent, of the entire authorized capital, and was imposed after the maximum limit named in St. 1909, c. 490, Part III, § 56, was removed by St. 1914, c. 724, § 1. As thus changed the statute is in its essence and practical operation indistinguishable from those adjudged invalid in Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 1; Pullman Company v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 56; Ludwig v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 216 U. S. 146, and Looney v. Crane Company, 245 U. S. 178. This we have just decided in International Paper Co. v. Massachusetts, arde, 135.

Judgment reversed.