318
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
even though the recipient pays no tax to New York on the income transferred to her. New York's choice, according to Lunding, is to deny the alimony deduction to the New Yorker whose former spouse resides out of state, or else extend the deduction to him. The Court apparently agrees. At least, the Court holds, New York "has not adequately justified" the line it has drawn. Ante, at 290.
The Court's condemnation of New York's law seems to me unwarranted. As applied to a universe of former marital partners who, like Lunding and his former spouse, reside in the same State, New York's attribution of income to someone (either payer or recipient) is hardly unfair. True, an occasional New York resident will be afforded a deduction though his former spouse, because she resides elsewhere, will not be chased by New York's tax collector. And an occasional New York alimony recipient will be taxed despite the nonresidence of her former spouse. But New York could legitimately assume that in most cases, as in the Lundings' case, payer and recipient will reside in the same State. Moreover, in cases in which the State's system is overly generous (New York payer, nonresident recipient) or insufficiently generous (nonresident payer, New York recipient), there is no systematic discrimination discretely against non-residents, for the pairs of former spouses in both cases include a resident and a nonresident.
In reviewing state tax classifications, we have previously held it sufficient under the Privileges and Immunities Clause that "the State has secured a reasonably fair distribution of burdens, and that no intentional discrimination has been made against non-residents." Travellers' Ins. Co. v. Connecticut, 185 U. S. 364, 371 (1902). In Travellers, the Court upheld a state tax that was facially discriminatory: Nonresi-dents who held stock in Connecticut corporations owed tax to the State on the full value of their holdings, while resident stockholders were entitled to a deduction for their proportionate share of the corporation's Connecticut real estate.
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