308
Opinion of the Court
currently permits nonresidents to avail themselves of what amounts to a pro rata deduction for other tax-deductible personal expenses besides alimony. Before 1987, New York law also allowed nonresidents to deduct a pro rata share of alimony payments. The New York State Tax Commissioner's advisory opinion in In re Rosenblatt indicates that § 631(b)(6) may have been intended to overrule Friedsam. See In re Rosenblatt, supra, ¶ 252-998, at 17,969 (Section 631(b)(6) "specifically reversed Friedson [sic] v. State Tax Comm'n, 64 N. Y. 2d 76 (1984), which had allowed an alimony deduction to a nonresident according to the formula for allocation of itemized deductions by the nonresident"). Certainly, as the New York Court of Appeals found, § 631(b)(6) "had the effect of removing [the] impairment" imposed by Friedsam, 89 N. Y. 2d, at 290, 675 N. E. 2d, at 821, thereby implying a disavowal of the State's previous policy of substantial equality between residents and nonresidents.
The policy expressed in Friedsam, which acknowledged the principles of equality and fairness underlying the Privileges and Immunities Clause, was not merely an "impairment," however. Although the State has considerable freedom to establish and adjust its tax policy respecting nonresidents, the end results must, of course, comply with the Federal Constitution, and any provision imposing disparate taxation upon nonresidents must be appropriately justified. As this Court has explained, where "the power to tax is not unlimited, validity is not established by the mere imposition of a tax." Mullaney v. Anderson, 342 U. S. 415, 418 (1952).
To justify § 631(b)(6), the State refers to a statement, presented in 1959 by New York's then-Commissioner of Taxation and Finance before a Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. In that statement, the Commissioner explained, " '[s]ince legally we do not and cannot recognize the existence of [non-New York source] income, we have felt that, in general, we cannot recognize . . . other deductions,
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