Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, 520 U.S. 564, 17 (1997)

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580

CAMPS NEWFOUND/OWATONNA, INC. v. TOWN OF HARRISON

Opinion of the Court

the same as in our cases involving taxes targeting out-ofstaters alone.

Unlike in Chemical Waste, we recognize that here the discriminatory burden is imposed on the out-of-state customer indirectly by means of a tax on the entity transacting business with the non-Maine customer. This distinction makes no analytic difference. As we noted in West Lynn Creamery discussing the general phenomenon of import tariffs: "For over 150 years, our cases have rightly concluded that the imposition of a differential burden on any part of the stream of commerce—from wholesaler to retailer to consumer—is invalid, because a burden placed at any point will result in a disadvantage to the out-of-state producer." 512 U. S., at 202 (citing cases). So too here, it matters little that it is the camp that is taxed rather than the campers. The record demonstrates that the economic incidence of the tax falls at least in part on the campers, the Town has not contested the point, and the courts below based their decision on this presumption. App. 49; 655 A. 2d, at 879; App. to Pet. for Cert. 14a, n. 2.14

With respect to those businesses—like petitioner's—that continue to engage in a primarily interstate trade, the Maine statute therefore functionally serves as an export tariff that targets out-of-state consumers by taxing the businesses that

criminatory state law deterring hostile tender offers violated the dormant Commerce Clause because most such offers "are launched by offerors outside Indiana." Id., at 88. We explained that "nothing in the . . . Act imposes a greater burden on out-of-state offerors than it does on similarly situated Indiana offerors." Ibid. (emphasis added). Here, the discrimination appears on the face of the Maine statute. Exxon Corp. v. Governor of Maryland, 437 U. S. 117 (1978), is similarly distinguishable. See id., at 126 ("The fact that the burden of a state regulation falls on some interstate companies does not, by itself, establish a claim of discrimination against interstate commerce").

14 We therefore have no need to consider these matters further. Cf. Fulton Corp. v. Faulkner, 516 U. S. 325, 341 (1996) (noting "complexity of economic incidence analysis").

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