Jefferson County, Alabama v. William M. Acker, JR., Senior Judge, United States District Court, Northern District of Alabama, and U. W. Clemon, Judge, United States District Court, Northern District of Alabama (527 U.S. 423)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 21, 1999 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 527 U.S. 423 · 119 S. Ct. 2069
- Decided
- June 21, 1999
- Term
- October Term 1998
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Federalism
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. Jefferson County, Alabama, imposes an occupational tax on persons working within the county who are not otherwise required to pay a license fee under state law. The controversy before us stems from proceedings the county commenced to collect the tax from two federal judges who hold court in the county. Preliminarily, the parties dispute whether, as the federal judges assert, the collection proceedings may be removed to, and adjudicated in, federal court. On the merits, the judges maintain that they are shielded from payment of the tax by the intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine, while the county urges that the doctrine does not apply unless the tax discriminates against an officeholder because of the source of his pay or compensation. We hold that the case was properly removed under the federal officer removal statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1442(a)(3), and that the Tax Injunction Act, §1341, does not bar federal-court adjudication. We further conclude that Jefferson County’s tax operates as a nondiscriminatory tax on the judges’ compensation, to which the Public Salary Tax Act of 1939, 4 U. S. C. § 111, consents. I A Alabama counties, as entities created by the State, can impose no tax absent state authorization. See Estes v. Gadsden, 266 Ala. 166, 170, 94 So. 2d 744, 747 (1957). Alabama, the parties to this litigation agree,…
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