344
Opinion of the Court
Had Congress, as a condition of permitting the taxation of railroad property, intended to restrict state power to exempt nonrailroad property, we are confident that it would have spoken with clarity and precision. Property tax exemptions are an important aspect of state and local tax policy. It was common at the time § 11503 was drafted, as it is now, for States with generally applicable ad valorem property taxes to exempt various classes of commercial property. Before 1960, a number of States granted such exemptions. See, e. g., Mo. Rev. Stat. § 150.040 (1949) (exempting unmanufactured articles consigned for sale and held by commission merchants); N. J. Rev. Stat. § 54:4-3.20 (1937) (exempting personal property stored in a public warehouse); Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 32, § 3802 (1959) (exempting tools and implements possessed by mechanics and farmers, and highway-building equipment); see also Jacobs, Exemption of Tangible Person-alty, in Tax Exemptions 141, 146 (1939) (by 1938, 16 States permitted "temporary exemption of newly located or newly constructed plants, and the machinery and equipment in such plants"). By the 1960's, about 20 States granted real and personal property tax exemptions to pollution control facilities. See McNulty, State Tax Incentives to Fight Pollution, 56 A. B. A. J. 747, 748, and n. 8 (Aug. 1970). By 1971, still well before enactment of the 4-R Act, a majority of the States exempted one or more classes of business personal property, including business inventories, raw materials used in textile manufacturing, manufacturing machinery and allied equipment, and mechanics tools. See Education Commission of the States, Property Assessment and Exemptions: They Need Reform, Table C-1 (Mar. 10, 1973). Given the prevalence of property tax exemptions when Congress enacted the 4-R Act, § 11503's silence on the subject—in light of the explicit prohibition of tax rate and assessment ratio discrimination—reflects a determination to permit the States to leave their exemptions in place.
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