Norton Company v. Department of Revenue of Illinois (340 U.S. 534)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 26, 1951 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 340 U.S. 534 · 71 S. Ct. 377
- Decided
- February 26, 1951
- Term
- October Term 1950
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Jackson (R.H.)
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
- Constitutional ruling
- State/territorial law held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Jackson delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner, a Massachusetts corporation, manufactures and sells abrasive machines and supplies. Under consent from the State of Illinois to do business therein, it operates a branch office and warehouse in Chicago from which it makes local sales at retail. These sales admittedly subject it to an Illinois Occupation Tax “upon persons engaged in the business of selling tangible personal property at retail in this State.” The base for computation of the tax is gross receipts. Ill. Rev. Stat., 1949, c. 120, §441. Not all of petitioner’s sales to Illinois customers are over-the-counter, but the State has collected, under protest, the tax on the entire gross income of this company from sales to its inhabitants. The statute specifically exempts “business in interstate commerce” as required by the Constitution, and the question is whether the State has exceeded the constitutional range of its taxing power by taxing all of petitioner’s Illinois derived income. In Worcester, Massachusetts, petitioner manufactures some 225,000 items, 18,000 of which it usually carries in stock. There are its general management, accounting, and credit offices, where it accepts or rejects all direct mail orders and orders forwarded by its Chicago office. If an order calls for specially built machines, it is there studied and accepted or rejected.…
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