franchise tax
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 266 U.S. 271 - Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton, Ltd. v. State Tax Commission · 1924Most cited · 371 citing opinions
It is not a direct tax upon the allocated income of the corporation in a given year, but a tax for the privilege of doing business in one year measured by the allocated income accruing from the business in the preceding year.
How the Supreme Court has restated “franchise tax”
Each Supreme Court definition of “franchise tax,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “franchise tax”
Court decisions citing the 4 opinions that defined “franchise tax” — 874 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 4 definitions, chronological · 1867–1931
- ORIGINAL
Franchise taxes are levied directly by an act of the legislature, and the corporations are required to pay the amount into the State treasury. They differ from property taxes, as levied for state and municipal purposes, in the basis prescribed for computing the amount, in the manner of assessment, and in the mode of collection, and they are in lieu of all other taxation, state or municipal.
The tax is a privilege and not a property tax. Giving to the shares a specified value by which the tax is measured, only affects the rate of tax on the privilege and does not give the statute an extraterritorial effect.
It is not a direct tax upon the allocated income of the corporation in a given year, but a tax for the privilege of doing business in one year measured by the allocated income accruing from the business in the preceding year.