Sec. 8.-Powers of Congress Cl. 3.-Commerce-Intrastate conferred by the United States, of constructing a railroad across the State and other States, and of taking toll thereon. Held unconstitutional. California v. Central Pac. R. Co., 127 U. S. 1. See also McCall v. California, 136 U. S. 104. Norfolk, etc., R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 136 U. S. 114. State law applicable to interstate and intrastate commerce, which imposes fees in excess of cost of inspection, imposes tax and is void, if not so far separable that excess may be assigned to intrastate commerce alone. Phipps v. Cleveland Refg. Co., 261 U. S. 449. (e) Sleeping-car companies.-State statute imposing a privilege on the running of sleeping cars over railroads which in terms applies strictly to business done in the transportation of passengers taken up at one point in the State and transported wholly within the State to another point therein is not an interference with interstate commerce. Allen v. Pullman Co., 191 U. S. 181. See also Pullman Co. v. Adams, 189 U. S. 420. Pullman Co. v. Richardson, 261 U. S. 330. (f) Telegraph and telephone companies.-A State or municipal corporation may impose a license tax on a telegraph company on account of business done wholly within the State. Postal Tel. Cable Co. v. Charleston, 153 U. S. 694. See also Williams v. Talladega, 226 U. S. 404. Leloup v. Mobile, 127 U. S. 645. Western Union v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 1. Ludwig v. Western Union, 216 U. S. 146. Postal Tel. Cable Co. v. Adams, 155 U. S. 696. Telegraph Co. v. Texas, 105 U. S. 466. Postal Tel. Cable Co. v. Fremont, 255 U. S. 124. An ordinance compelling a telegraph company to pay a tax for every pole within the city for the privilege of using the streets, alleys, etc., is a charge in the nature of a rental, and is not a privilege or license tax, which would be invalid as applied to a corporation doing interstate business. St. Louis v. Western Union, 148 U. S. 92. (g) Steamship companies.-Municipal ordinance exacting a license fee for the privilege of navigating a stream within the 12703°-S. Doc. 157, 68-1-16 Sec. 8.-Powers of Congress Cl. 3.-Commerce-Intrastate State by tugs enrolled and licensed in the coasting trade is invalid when the license fee is a tax for the use of navigable waters and not a charge by way of compensation for any specific improvement. Harman v. Chicago, 147 U. S. 404. Moran v. New Orleans, 112 U. S. 70. Tax imposed upon transportation companies for the privilege of carrying on the business in a corporate capacity within the State, on transportation purely intrastate, is valid as applied to a steamboat company plying navigable waters between points in the same State. Cornell Steamboat Co. v. Sohmer, 235 U. S. 549, distinguishing the case of Harman v. Chicago, supra. (h) Ferries.-License fee imposed upon the keepers of ferries living within the State is not a regulation of commerce. Wiggins Ferry Co. v. East St. Louis, 107 U. S. 373. The fact that a company engaged in carrying passengers and freight between two States could not lease its wharf in one State, except by the implied consent of the legislature of that State, does not give to that State a right to tax the receiving and landing of passengers and freight at its wharf in that State. Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 205. (i) Agents.-Municipal license tax on railroad and steamboat agents. McCall v. California, 136 U. S. 109. A State license tax can not be laid upon the business of a corporation employed as agent by owners of vessels engaged exclusively in interstate and foreign commerce where its business is confined to, and is a necessary adjunct of, their commerce. McCall v. California, 136 U. S. 104, followed. Ficklen v. Shelby County Taxing District, 145 U. S. 1, distinguished. Texas Transport Co. v. New Orleans, 264 U. S. 150. Privilege tax for keeping an office.-Invalid when imposed by State on interstate carrier. Norfolk, etc., R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 136 U. S. 118. (j) Tax on passengers and immigrants.—Statute providing that "there shall be levied and collected a duty of one dollar for each and every alien passenger who shall come by vessel from a foreign port to the port of New York for whom a tax has not heretofore been paid," is a regulation of commerce with foreign nations, confided by the Constitution to the exclusive control of Congress, notwithstanding that the caption of the act calls it an inspection law. People v. Compagnie Gen. Transatlantique, 107 U. S. 60. State capitation tax upon every person leaving the State, or passing through it, by any railroad, stage coach, or other vehicle Sec. 8.-Powers of Congress Cl. 3.-Commerce-Intrastate engaged or employed in the business of transporting passengers for hire, is not void as a regulation of commerce, inasmuch as the tax does not itself institute any regulation of commerce of a national character or which has a uniform operation over the whole country, but, as the operation of such a statute would embarrass the operations of the National Government, it is void. Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 40. State statutes imposing taxes on alien passengers are void. Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283. See also Head Money Cases, 112 U. S. 580. (k) Taxation of bridges and bridge companies.-The taxation by a State of a bridge over a navigable stream is in no proper sense inconsistent with the power of Congress to regulate the use of the river as one of the navigable waters of the United States. Henderson Bridge Co. v. Henderson, 141 U. S. 679; 173 U. S. 622. Keokuk, etc., Bridge Co. v. Illinois, 175 U. S. 632. (1) Tax on owners of grain elevators.-Statute requiring a license fee from the owners of grain elevators and warehouses situated on the right of way of a railroad is not inconsistent with the commerce clause. Cargill Co. v. Minnesota, 180 U. S. 470. (m) Tax on oil and gas in pipe lines held void as to part passing out of the State of production. Eureka Pipe Line Co. v. Hallanan, 257 U. S. 265. United Fuel Gas Co. v. Hallanan, 257 U. S. 277. Taxation of corporate franchises-(a) In general.-There is nothing in the nature of things or in the limitations of the Constitution which restrains a State from taxing at its real value intangible property. Adams Exp. Co. v. Ohio, 166 U. S. 185. The Federal circuit courts have no jurisdiction of an original action in mandamus to compel the return of a franchise tax collected under the authority of a State statute, although the basis of the relief sought is the alleged repugnancy of the tax to the commerce clause. Covington, etc., Bridge Co. v. Hager, 203 U. S. 109. Statute imposing franchise tax on foreign corporations, measured by capital stock, held invalid as applied to nonresident corporation engaged in both interstate and intrastate commerce. Looney v. Crane Co., 245 U. S. 178. International Paper Co. v. Massachusetts, 246 U. S. 135. Sec. 8.-Powers of Congress Cl. 3.-Commerce-Intrastate (b) Domestic corporations.-Statutes levying a tax on every share of capital stock and on the net earnings or increase of a railroad company incorporated in that State does not interfere with the right of transit of persons and property from one State into and through another. Delaware Railroad Tax, 18 Wall. 232. Atlantic, etc., Tel. Co. v. Philadelphia, 190 U. S. 163. Philadelphia, etc., S. S. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 122 U. S. 345. (c) As measured by property.—Franchise tax levied on a railroad company, measured by property, does not lay a burden on interstate commerce from the fact that the considerable portion of its cars constantly out of the State by the familiar course of railroad business had not been deducted from the capital. New York Cent. R. Co. v. Miller, 202 U. S. 584. Nonexcessive tax upon corporation engaged in interstate commerce, assessed upon proportion of value of franchise measured by local business, was sustained in Schwab v. Richardson, 263 U. S. 88. Congressional inaction leaves a State free to impose such burdens on interstate commerce as may result from a statute forbidding sale of corporate stock within State without State license. Hall v. Geiger-Jones Co., 242 U. S. 539. Franchise tax on capital stock and surplus employed in State does not contravene this clause even if value of franchise is derived partly from interstate business. St. Louis, etc., R. Co. v. Middlekamp, 256 U. S. 226. (d) Foreign corporations.-A State has the right to tax the franchise or privilege of being a corporation as personal property, and this whether the corporation be a domestic or a foreign corporation doing business by its permission within the State. Postal Tel. Cable Co. v. Adams, 155 U. S. 696. Underwood Typewriter Co. v. Chamberlain, 254 U. S. 113. St. Louis, etc., R. Co. v. Arkansas, 235 U. S. 350. A State can not, under the guise of a license tax, exclude from its jurisdiction a foreign corporation engaged in interstate commerce or impose any burdens upon such commerce within its limits. Norfolk, etc., R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 136 U. S. 118. Baltic Mining Co. v. Massachusetts, 231 U. S. 68; Horn Silver Mining Statute taxing all shares of stock in foreign corporations owned by inhabitants of the State, while the property of do Sec. 8.-Powers of Congress Cl. 3.-Commerce-Intrastate mestic corporations is taxed in similar cases, is not contrary to the commerce clause. Darnell v. Indiana, 226 U. S. 390. Merchandise once sold by the importer is taxable as other property. Waring v. The Mayor, 8 Wall. 122. American Steel, etc., Co. v. Speed, 192 U. S. 520. May v. New Orleans, 178 U. S. 501. The exaction of a license tax for permission to sell goods in the bale or package in which they are imported is an interference with the power of Congress to regulate commerce. Low v. Austin, 13 Wall. 33. Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 436. (e) Corporations created by Congress.-Franchises granted by Congress under the power of the commerce clause are not legitimate subjects of taxation by a State. They are granted for national purposes and to subserve national ends, and a State can neither take them away nor destroy nor abridge them nor cripple them by onerous burdens. California v. Central Pac. R. Co., 127 U. S. 40. Atlantic, etc., Tel. Co. v. Philadelphia, 190 U. S. 163. The authority to construct and maintain a bridge given by an act of Congress to corporations organized for that purpose by two States did not make them Federal corporations, and State taxes on the capital stock are not taxes on franchises conferred by the Federal Government. Keokuk, etc., Bridge Co. v. Illinois, 175 U. S. 632. Transfers of stock.-State tax of 2 cents a share on transfers of stock within the State is not an interference with interstate commerce. Hatch v. Reardon, 204 U. S. 152. Wholesalers of soft drinks.-A nonresident manufacturer of soft drinks doing a business in a municipality in the State which largely consists in carrying a supply of soft drinks from one retailer's place to another's upon the vehicle in which the goods were brought across the State line, exposing them for sale, etc., and selling them in the original unbroken packages, may be required to take out the license required of all wholesalers in soft drinks without infringing the commerce clause. Wagner v. Covington, 251 U. S. 95. Gas. The district court, finding a statutory gas rate confiscatory, enjoined public officials from enforcing it, but, as a condition, required the plaintiff gas company to impound with a special master all sums collected from consumers in excess of the rate, pending determination of the case on appeal, and, later, for the protection of the plaintiff and to benefit consumers, per |