202
Breyer, J., dissenting
Central Greyhound considered a tax imposed by the State of New York on utilities doing business in New York—a tax called " '[e]mergency tax on the furnishing of utility services.' " Id., at 664 (Murphy, J., dissenting) (quoting New York Tax Law § 186-a). That tax was equal to "two per centum" of "gross income," defined to include "receipts received . . . by reason of any sale . . . made" in New York. 334 U. S., at 664. The New York taxing authorities had applied the tax to gross receipts from sales (in New York) of bus transportation between New York City and cities in up-state New York over routes that cut across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Id., at 654. The out-of-state portion of the trips accounted for just over 40 percent of total mileage. Id., at 660.
Justice Frankfurter wrote for the Central Greyhound Court that "it is interstate commerce which the State is seeking to reach," id., at 661; that the "real question [is] whether what the State is exacting is a constitutionally fair demand . . . for that aspect of the interstate commerce to which the State bears a special relation," ibid.; and that by "its very nature an unapportioned gross receipts tax makes interstate transportation bear more than 'a fair share of the cost of the local government whose protection it enjoys,' " id., at 663 (quoting Freeman v. Hewit, 329 U. S. 249, 253 (1946)). The Court noted:
"If New Jersey and Pennsylvania could claim their right to make appropriately apportioned claims against that substantial part of the business of appellant to which they afford protection, we do not see how on principle and in precedent such a claim could be denied. This being so, to allow New York to impose a tax on the gross receipts for the entire mileage—on the 57.47% within New York as well as the 42.53% without—would subject interstate commerce to the unfair burden of being taxed as to portions of its revenue by States which give pro-
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