190
Opinion of the Court
apportionment is required here, see 15 F. 3d, at 92-93, as the taxpayer now argues.
We, however, think that Central Greyhound provides the wrong analogy for answering the sales tax apportionment question here. To be sure, the two cases involve the identical services, and apportionment by mileage per State is equally feasible in each. But the two diverge crucially in the identity of the taxpayers and the consequent opportunities that are understood to exist for multiple taxation of the same taxpayer. Central Greyhound did not rest simply on the mathematical and administrative feasibility of a mileage apportionment, but on the Court's express understanding that the seller-taxpayer was exposed to taxation by New Jersey and Pennsylvania on portions of the same receipts that New York was taxing in their entirety. The Court thus understood the gross receipts tax to be simply a variety of tax on income, which was required to be apportioned to reflect the location of the various interstate activities by which it was earned. This understanding is presumably the reason that the Central Greyhound Court said nothing about the arguably local character of the levy on the sales transaction.5 Instead, the Court heeded Berwind-White's warning about "[p]rivilege taxes requiring a percentage of the gross receipts from interstate transportation," which "if sustained, could be imposed wherever the interstate activity occurs . . . ." 309 U. S., at 45-46, n. 2.
Here, in contrast, the tax falls on the buyer of the services, who is no more subject to double taxation on the sale of these services than the buyer of goods would be. The taxable event comprises agreement, payment, and delivery of some of the services in the taxing State; no other State can claim to be the site of the same combination. The economic activity represented by the receipt of the ticket for "consumption" in the form of commencement and partial provision of the
5 Although New York's tax reached the gross receipts only from ticket sales within New York State, 334 U. S., at 664, 666 (Murphy, J., dissenting), the majority makes no mention of this fact.
Page: Index Previous 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007