862
MACHINES CORP.
Opinion of the Court
State to impose a nondiscriminatory tax directly on goods in import or export transit. We think the Government has failed to make that showing.
The Court has never upheld a state tax assessed directly on goods in import or export transit. In Michelin, we suggested that the Import-Export Clause would invalidate application of a nondiscriminatory property tax to goods still in import or export transit. 423 U. S., at 290 (compliance with the Import-Export Clause may be secured "by prohibiting the assessment of even nondiscriminatory property taxes on [import or export] goods which are merely in transit through the State when the tax is assessed"). See also Virginia Indonesia Co. v. Harris County Appraisal Dist., 910 S. W. 2d 905, 915 (Tex. 1995) (invalidating application of a nondiscriminatory ad valorem property tax to goods in export transit).
We also declined to endorse the Government's theory in Washington Stevedoring. After reciting that the Court in Canton R. Co. had distinguished Thames & Mersey, Fairbank, and Richfield Oil, we pointed out that in those cases "the State [or Federal Government] had taxed either the goods or activity so connected with the goods that the levy amounted to a tax on the goods themselves." Washington Stevedoring, 435 U. S., at 756, n. 21. We expressly declined to "reach the question of the applicability of the Michelin approach when a State directly taxes imports or exports in transit," id., at 757, n. 23, because, although the goods in that case were in transit, the tax fell on "a service distinct from the goods and their value," id., at 757. Thus, contrary to the Government's contention, this Court's Import-Export Clause cases have not upheld the validity of generally applicable, nondiscriminatory taxes that fall on imports or exports in transit. We think those cases leave us free to follow the express textual command of the Export Clause to prohibit the application of any tax "laid on Articles exported from any State."
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