2009 United States Supreme Court case
Polar Tankers, Inc. v. City of Valdez Supreme Court of the United States involving the tonnage clause of the United States Constitution .
The City of Valdez in Alaska imposed a property tax that, in practice, applied only to large oil tankers . Polar Tankers, a ConocoPhillips subsidiary, sued, arguing that the tax violated the Tonnage Clause of the Constitution, which forbids a state , "without the Consent of Congress , [to] lay any Duty of Tonnage."
The Supreme Court agreed with Polar Tankers. The court noted that the original meaning of the clause was as a term of art for a tax imposed that varies with "the internal cubic capacity of a vessel ," but emphasized that a consistent line of cases had read the clause broadly, "forbidding a State to do that indirectly which she is forbidden ... to do directly."[1] tonnage , or a sum to be ascertained by comparing the amount of tonnage with the rate of duty[,] ... regardless of [the tax or duty's] name or form ... which operate to impose a charge for the privilege of entering, trading in, or lying in a port."[2]
With this premise in mind, the court concluded that because Valdez taxes "ships and to no other property at all[,] ... in order to obtain revenue for general city purposes[, this was] ... the kind of tax that the Tonnage Clause forbids Valdez to impose without the consent of Congress, consent that Valdez lacks."
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Dormant Commerce Clause
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