656
Opinion of the Court
place the provisions perfecting a compensatory tax scheme in two or more statutes passed by the state legislature, there is no logical reason to think that a State's decision to implement its sales/use tax scheme through provisions promulgated at different levels of government within the State makes the system invalid.
C
That we have declared the tax scheme impermissibly discriminatory in some localities does not in itself dictate the relief that the State must provide. As we noted in McKesson Corp. v. Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, Fla. Dept. of Business Regulation, 496 U. S. 18, 39-40 (1990), a "State found to have imposed an impermissibly discriminatory tax retains flexibility in responding to this determination." We have suggested that the provision of a "meaningful opportunity for taxpayers to withhold contested tax assessments and to challenge their validity in a predeprivation hearing" is itself sufficient to satisfy constitutional concerns. Id., at 38, n. 21. Because the parties have not addressed the procedures that were available in Missouri to contest the tax, any effect Missouri's procedures might have on the appropriate remedy in this case is best left for consideration on remand. Even if no such predeprivation procedure existed, the Due Process Clause would demand only that, "to cure the illegality of the tax as originally imposed, the State must ultimately collect a tax for the contested tax period that in no respect impermissibly discriminates against interstate commerce." Id., at 44, n. 27. The methods best adapted to achieving equal treatment in this case, whether partial or complete refunds or other measures, are similarly matters properly left for determination on remand.
inquiry requires examination of hundreds of provisions for political units within the State—avoids being drawn into an amorphous inquiry that involves balancing incommensurate burdens imposed on disparate activities throughout the complex structure of a State's tax system.
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