Cite as: 517 U. S. 843 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
the Government. The Government's policy argument—that the Framers intended the Export Clause to narrowly alleviate the fear of northern repression through taxation of southern exports by prohibiting only discriminatory taxes— cannot be squared with the broad language of the Clause. The better reading, that adopted by our earlier cases, is that the Framers sought to alleviate their concerns by completely denying to Congress the power to tax exports at all.
3
Even assuming that Michelin and Washington Stevedoring govern our Export Clause inquiry in this case, the Government's argument falls short of its goal. Our holdings in Michelin and Washington Stevedoring do not reach the facts of this case and, more importantly, do not interpret the Import-Export Clause to permit assessment of nondiscriminatory taxes on imports and exports in transit. Michelin involved a tax on goods, but the goods were no longer in transit. The tax in Washington Stevedoring burdened imports and exports while they were still in transit, but it did not fall directly on the goods themselves. This case, as it comes to us, is a hybrid in which the tax both burdens exports during transit and—as the Government concedes and our earlier cases held—is essentially a tax on the goods themselves. The Government argues that Michelin and Washington Stevedoring by analogy permit Congress to impose generally applicable, nondiscriminatory taxes that fall directly on exports in transit. Brief for United States 32 (Michelin and Washington Stevedoring "demonstrate that, when a generally applicable, nondiscriminatory tax is at issue, the mere fact that the tax applies also to goods that are in the export or import process does not provide a constitutional immunity from taxation"). If this contention is to succeed, the Government at the very least must show that our Import-Export Clause jurisprudence now permits a
861
Page: Index Previous 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007