342
Opinion of the Court
Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U. S. 575, 589-590, and nn. 12-14 (1983), noting that "courts as institutions are poorly equipped to evaluate with precision the relative burdens of various methods of taxation. The complexities of factual economic proof always present a certain potential for error, and courts have little familiarity with the process of evaluating the relative economic burden of taxes" (footnote omitted). We were likewise unwilling to "plunge . . . into the morass of weighing comparative tax burdens by comparing taxes on dissimilar events" in Oregon Waste. 511 U. S., at 105 (internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, the general difficulty of comparing the economic incidence of state taxes paid by different taxpayers upon different transactions goes a long way toward explaining why we have so seldom recognized a valid compensatory tax outside the context of sales and use taxes.8 See Hellerstein, Complementary Taxes as a Defense to Unconstitutional State Tax Discrimination, 39 Tax Law-8 The only exception of which we are aware is Hinson v. Lott, 8 Wall. 148 (1869). In that case, we upheld an Alabama tax on each gallon of liquor imported into the State on the ground that it complemented a tax of equal magnitude on each gallon of liquor distilled in the State. We noted that this tax scheme was "necessary to make the tax equal on all liquors sold in the State," id., at 153, a rationale consistent with our conclusion that the compensatory tax doctrine is fundamentally concerned with equalizing competition between in-staters and out-of-staters. Indeed, we cited Hinson in support of a similar proposition in Silas Mason. See Henneford v. Silas Mason, 300 U. S. 577, 585 (1937). In determining that a tax on importers and distillers would actually equalize competition in the liquor market, the Hinson Court made a good commonsense estimate of the likely incidence of the two taxes. Simply because modern economic tools may indicate that the incidence question is more complex, moreover, does not undermine the basic principle of equal competition established in Hinson. By the same token, however, Hinson does not alter our conclusion today that courts will ordinarily be unable to evaluate the economic equivalence of allegedly complementary tax schemes that go beyond traditional sales/use taxes. See supra, at 337-338, this page and 343. So much for Hinson in theory; for Hinson in practice, compare it with Armco, supra.
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