Cite as: 517 U. S. 843 (1996)
Kennedy, J., dissenting
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We conclude that the Export Clause does not permit assessment of nondiscriminatory federal taxes on goods in export transit. Reexamination of the question whether a particular assessment on an activity or service is so closely connected to the goods as to amount to a tax on the goods themselves must await another day. We decline to overrule Thames & Mersey. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Justice Kennedy, with whom Justice Ginsburg joins, dissenting.
The Court today holds a federal statute unconstitutional without giving heed to the simplest reason for sustaining it. We granted certiorari on the question "[w]hether, as applied to casualty insurance for losses incurred during the shipment of goods from locations within the United States to purchasers abroad, the tax imposed by Section 4371 of the Internal Revenue Code violates the Export Clause of the Constitution of the United States (U. S. Const. Art. I, § 9, Cl. 5)," Pet. for Cert. I. A straightforward answer to the question presented requires us to address the narrow issue of the continuing validity of our holding in Thames & Mersey Marine Ins. Co. v. United States, 237 U. S. 19 (1915), that a general tax on certain insurance premiums, as applied to exporters, is a prohibited tax on export goods.
Rejecting this course, the Court ventures upon a broad constitutional inquiry not even implicated by the statute. To do so, it rewrites the question presented. In the first sentence of the opinion, the Court says, "We resolve in this case whether the Export Clause of the Constitution permits the imposition of a generally applicable, nondiscriminatory
863
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