Cite as: 510 U. S. 332 (1994)
Stevens, J., dissenting
Court of Appeals in this case) have differed on precisely how to decide whether a wholesale exemption unlawfully "discriminates" and thus gives rise to liability, none has taken the position accepted by the Court today that a claim predicated on discriminatory exemptions is not cognizable under subsection (b)(4).
As the Court explains, ante, at 343, subsection (b)(4) does not contain a specific prohibition against imposing on railroads an ad valorem tax from which other property owners are exempt. That omission, of course, does not answer the question before us: whether the tax that Oregon has imposed "discriminates against a rail carrier" within the meaning of subsection (b)(4). A State might discriminate against a dis-favored class of taxpayers in a variety of ways. The absence in the 4-R Act of a provision specifically addressing exemptions is no more significant than the absence of a provision addressing deductions, credits, methods of collecting or protesting state taxes, or penalties. Surely a state tax law that allowed a substantial tax deduction for all taxpayers except rail carriers would readily be recognized as discriminatory. That conclusion would not be affected by the fact that the antidiscrimination statute does not speak specifically to deductions. Indeed, the Court suggests that an exemption for all taxpayers except rail carriers would make the tax discriminatory. See ante, at 346.
Rather than addressing every means that might be devised to accord discriminatory tax treatment to rail carriers, Congress specified two familiar methods (differential rates and assessments) and then included a general provision de-454 U. S. 1086 (1981). Only the Virginia Supreme Court has reached the contrary conclusion, see Richmond, F. & P. R. Co. v. State Corporation Comm'n, 230 Va. 260, 262, 336 S. E. 2d 896, 897 (1985), and it did so on a basis that I do not understand the Court to accept today—that because ad valorem property taxes are treated in the first three subsections, an ad valorem property tax may never be attacked as discriminatory under subsection (b)(4).
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