Helvering v. Powers’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

80 federal appellate · 15 district · 44 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 276 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The principle of immunity thus has inherent limitations. (Metcalf & Eddy v. Mitchell, supra, pp. 522, 524; Willcuts v. Bunn, 282 U. S. 216, 225, 226 ; Indian Motorcycle Co. v. United States, supra, p. 576; Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal, 286 U. S. 123, 128 ; Board of Trustees v. United States, 289 U. S. 48, 59 .) And one of these limitations is that the state cannot withdraw sources of revenue from the federal taxing power by engaging in businesses which constitute a departure from usual governmental functions and to which, by reason of their nature, the federal taxing power would normally extend. The fact that the state has power to undertake such enterprises, and that they are undertaken for what the state conceives to be the public benefit, does not establish immunity. (South Carolina v. United States, 199 U. S. 437 ; Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., 220 U. S. 107, 172 ; Murray v. Wilson Distilling Co., 213 U. S. 151, 173 ; Metcalf & Eddy v. Mitchell, supra; Indian Motorcycle Co. v. United States, supra; Ohio v. Helvering, 292 U. S. 360, 368, 369 .) The necessary protection of the independence of the state government is not deemed to go so far.” (p. 225.) (Italics inserted.)”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Helvering v. Therrell · Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority

2. ““We see no reason for putting the operation of a street railway in a different category from the sale of liquors. In each case, the state, with its own conception of public advantage, is undertaking a business enterprise of a sort that is normally within the reach of the federal taxing power and is distinct from the usual governmental functions that are immune from federal taxation in order to safeguard the necessary independence of the state. If, in the instant case, the commonwealth had acquired the property of the company and had organized management of it in perpetuity by the state government, instead of temporarily, or had taken over all the street railways in all its cities for direct operation by the commonwealth, there would appear to be no ground, under the principles established by the decisions we have cited, for holding that this would effect the withdrawal of the enterprise from the' federal taxing power. And the fact that the state has here undertaken public management and operation for a limited time, and under the particular restrictions of the agreement with the company, cannot be said to furnish a ground for immunity. “If the business itself, by reason of its character, is not immune, although undertaken by the state, from a federal excise tax upon its operations, upon what ground can it be said that the compensation of those who conduct the enterprise for the state is exempt from a federal income tax? Their compensation, whether paid out of the returns from”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Mathews v. Commissioner · Clinton v. State Tax Commission

3. ““The term ‘public office’ undoubtedly implies a definite assignment of public activity, fixed by appointment, tenure and duties. But whether that field of activity, in relation to a State, carries immunity from federal taxation is a question which compels consideration of the nature of the activity, apart from the mere creation of offices for conducting it, and of the fundamental reason for denying federal authority to tax.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wood v. Commissioner · 207 F. Supp. 866 - Green v. Bookwalter