Cite as: 511 U. S. 641 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
Respondents' final defense of the use tax is an appeal to Missouri's pure motives: that is, its lack of any intent to discriminate. As the product of a decentralized decision-making process that relies on the independent judgment of hundreds of local jurisdictions, the use tax scheme, in respondents' view, cannot reveal any overall design on the part of the State or any other governmental entity to disfavor interstate trade. In fact, respondents urge that holding this scheme unconstitutional would effectively eliminate the State's ability to delegate taxing authority to local jurisdictions. But a court need not inquire into the purpose or motivation behind a law to determine that in actuality it impermissibly discriminates against interstate commerce. See, e. g., Philadelphia, 437 U. S., at 626 (describing "legislative purpose" as "not . . . relevant to the constitutional issue to be decided"); Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Comm'n, 432 U. S. 333, 352-353 (1977). See also Chemical Waste Management, Inc. v. Hunt, 504 U. S. 334, 340-342 (1992).
It should be apparent that in holding this scheme unconstitutional we impose no new restrictions on the State's power to delegate its taxing authority as it sees fit. What a State may not do is appeal to decentralized decisionmaking to augment its powers: It may not grant its political subdivisions a power to discriminate against interstate commerce that the State lacked in the first instance.
The State remains free to authorize political subdivisions to impose sales or use taxes, as long as discriminatory treatment of interstate commerce does not result. Other States apparently have had little difficulty in combining some local autonomy with the commands of the Commerce Clause. As the parties stipulated, App. 35, 28 States that provide political subdivisions some authority to impose use taxes have devised systems to ensure that use taxes are not higher than sales taxes within the same taxing jurisdiction. See, e. g.,
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