Cite as: 515 U. S. 450 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
C
The State also argues that, even if legal incidence is key, the Tenth Circuit erred in holding that the fuels tax's legal incidence rests on the retailer (here, the Tribe). We consider the Court of Appeals' ruling on this point altogether reasonable, and therefore uphold it. See, e. g., Haring v. Prosise, 462 U. S. 306, 314, n. 8 (1983) (noting "our practice to accept a reasonable construction of state law by the court of appeals").
The Oklahoma legislation does not expressly identify who bears the tax's legal incidence—distributors, retailers, or consumers; nor does it contain a "pass through" provision, requiring distributors and retailers to pass on the tax's cost to consumers. Cf. Moe, 425 U. S., at 482 (statute at issue provided that Montana cigarette tax " 'shall be conclusively presumed to be [a] direct [tax] on the retail consumer precollected for the purpose of convenience and facility only' ").
In the absence of such dispositive language, the question is one of "fair interpretation of the taxing statute as written and applied." California Bd. of Equalization v. Chemehuevi Tribe, 474 U. S. 9, 11 (1985) (per curiam). Oklahoma's law requires fuel distributors to "remit" the amount of tax due to the Tax Commission; crucially, the statute describes this remittal by the distributor as "on behalf of a licensed retailer." Okla. Stat., Tit. 68, § 505(C) (1991) (emphasis added). The inference that the tax obligation is legally the retailer's, not the distributor's, is supported by the prescriptions that sales between distributors are exempt from taxation, § 507, but sales from a distributor to a retailer are subject to taxation, § 505(E). Further, if the distributor remits taxes it subsequently is unable to collect from the retailer, the distributor may deduct the uncollected amount from its future payments to the Tax Commission. § 505(C). The distributor, then, "is no more than a transmittal agent
461
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