governmental instrumentality
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 285 U.S. 393 - Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co. · 1932Most cited · 569 citing opinions
those agencies through which either government immediately and directly exercises its sovereign powers, are immune from the taxing power of the other
How the Supreme Court has restated “governmental instrumentality”
Each Supreme Court definition of “governmental instrumentality,” 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 “governmental instrumentality”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “governmental instrumentality” — 1,011 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 3 definitions, chronological · 1932–1933
The principle of the immunity from state taxation of instrumentalities of the federal government . . . is aimed at the protection of the operations of government . . . and the immunity does not extend to anything lying outside or beyond governmental functions and their exertion. Where the immunity exists, it is absolute, resting upon an entire absence of power . . . but it does not exist where no direct burden is laid upon the governmental instrumentality, and there is only a remote, if any, influence upon the exercise of the functions of government.
There is a recognized distinction between a non-discriminatory tax upon the property of an agent of government, albeit the property is used in, or has relation to, the business of the agency—where there is only a remote, if any, influence upon the exercise of the functions of government—and a tax which is deemed to impose a direct burden upon the exertion of governmental powers.