A state is without power to levy a license tax in respect of the
selling and delivery of goods on a military reservation included
within the exterior limits of the state but over which the full
legislative authority has been ceded to the United States by an Act
of the state legislature. P.
291 U. S.
244.
218 Cal. 123, 22 P.2d 2, reversed.
Appeal from the reversal of a judgment in favor of the Oil
Company in an action brought by the state to collect an excise tax
together with a penalty. The judgment of reversal directed the
trial court to enter judgment for the state as prayed.
MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.
By Ch. 267, Statutes 1923, as amended (Chs. 716 and 795,
Statutes 1927), the State of California undertook to lay a license
tax upon every distributor for each gallon of motor vehicle fuel
"sold and delivered by him in this State," with certain exceptions
not here important.
Page 291 U. S. 243
At its own expense and risk, appellant, a Delaware corporation,
qualified to do business in California, sold and delivered to the
Post Exchange, within the Presidio of San Francisco, 420 gallons of
gasoline. It carried this to the Exchange's place of business in
barrels or by tank trucks. Both sale and delivery were within the
area long held and occupied by the United States for military
purposes.
The state demanded of appellant three cents per gallon upon the
gasoline so sold and delivered. Payment being refused, this suit
followed. In the trial court, the company prevailed. The Supreme
Court held to the contrary, and, among other things, said:
"We have thus presented the question whether sales and
deliveries of gasoline at a military reservation under the sole
jurisdiction of the United States, made to the army post exchange
therein, are to be excluded in fixing the license fees to be paid
by the distributor under said act of the Legislature. . . . It is
at once conceded, as already implied, that the military reservation
in question is territory over which the United States exercises
sole legislative authority. . . . It is contended that, by reason
of this concession, a sale consummated on it is a sale outside the
state, as though consummated in Nevada or Oregon. It is our
conclusion that the manifest intention of the act was to include
all sales completed within the geographical confines of the state,
and, for this purpose, said military reservation was to be included
like all other territory."
218 Cal. 123, 126.
The Presidio of San Francisco, a tract of more than fourteen
hundred acres, lies between that city and the Golden Gate, and is
within the exterior limits of California. Established as a military
post under Spanish dominion about 1776, it continued to be so used
by the Republic of Mexico until ceded to the United States in 1848
by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. An executive
Page 291 U. S. 244
order of November 6, 1850, dedicated it to public purposes;
since then, it has been occupied as a military reservation. By Act
of March 2, 1897, California ceded to the United States exclusive
jurisdiction over this area with a proviso:
"That this state reserves the right to serve and execute on said
lands all civil process, not incompatible with this cession, and
such criminal process as may lawfully issue under the authority of
this state against any person or persons charged with crimes
committed without said lands."
See United States v. Watkins, 22 F.2d
437. The state reserved to herself no power whatever in respect
of taxation.
Appellant challenges the validity of the taxing act as construed
by the Supreme Court. The argument is that, since the state granted
to the United States exclusive legislative jurisdiction over the
Presidio, she is now without power to impose taxes in respect of
sales and deliveries made therein. This claim, we think, is well
founded, and the judgment below must be reversed.
In three recent cases,
Arlington Hotel Co. v. Fant,
278 U. S. 439,
United States v. Unzeuta, 281 U.
S. 138, and
Surplus Trading Co. v. Cook,
281 U. S. 647, we
have pointed out the consequences of cession by a state to the
United States of jurisdiction over lands held by the latter for
military purposes. Considering these opinions, it seems plain that,
by the Act of 1897, California surrendered every possible claim of
right to exercise legislative authority within the Presidio -- put
that area beyond the field of operation of her laws. Accordingly,
her legislature could not lay a tax upon transactions begun and
concluded therein.
Arlington Hotel Co. v. Fant, 278 U.
S. 439, denied the power of Arkansas by legislation to
modify the liability of innkeepers within a reservation ceded by
her to the United States.
Page 291 U. S. 245
United States v. Unzeuta, 281 U.
S. 138, affirmed the exclusive jurisdiction of the
United States over crimes committed within a reservation lying
within Nebraska. Jurisdiction had been ceded by the state.
Surplus Trading Co. v. Cook, 281 U.
S. 647, ruled that land within Arkansas purchased by the
United States for military purposes with the state's consent was
under their exclusive jurisdiction. Private personal property
therein was declared not subject to taxation by the state.
The principle approved in those cases applies here. A state
cannot legislate effectively concerning matters beyond her
jurisdiction and within territory subject only to control by the
United States.
The judgment of the Supreme Court must be reversed. The cause
will be remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this
opinion.
Reversed.