On March 28, 1989, in Davis v. Michigan Dept. It also enacted a special statute of limitations for refund L. Rev. at ___, Ill S.Ct. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U. S. 50, 88 (1982); Chevron Oil, 404. u. S., at 106-107; Phoenix v. Kolodziejski, 399 U. S. 204, 214 (1970); Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U. S. 701, 706 (1969); see also American Trucking Assns., 496 U. S., at 188-200 (plurality opinion) (canvassing the Court's retroactivity jurisprudence); ante, at 110 (KENNEDY, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (citing cases).
Chevron Oil, 404 U. S., at 106.
. placed upon the previous view of the law, and "the effect We disagree. Ante, at 97. There being no risk of abusive taxation of the National Government, there was a good argument that there should have been no intergovernmental immunity problem either. 12, 1990). . while taxing federal retirement benefits. Barker v. Kansas, 503 U. S. 594, 596 (1992). 200 S. E. 2d 566 (1973); Capehart v. City of Chesapeake, In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that state taxation of pension income of retired federal government employees, while exempting from taxation pension income of retired state government employees, violated the doctrine of intergovernmental tax immunity embodied in the supremacy clause of the Constitution of the United states.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, eleven southern states established poll taxes as part of their disenfranchisement of most blacks and many poor whites. Chevron Oil and criminal retroactivity cases overruled by Griffith. (b) This Court applied the rule of law announced in Davis to the parties before the Court. The U.S. Supreme Court vacated that decision and remanded the case for "further consideration in light of James B. Beam Distilling Co. v. Georgia, 501 U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. three pronged Chevron Oil test in deciding the retroactivity issue in the present case." of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803 (1989), retroactive, see post, at 111 (KENNEDY, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), two find it not retroactive, see post, at 122 (O'CONNOR, J., dissenting).
Const., Art. a refund of taxes "paid . Under the Court's new approach, we have neither authority nor discretion to consider the merits of applying Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Taxation, 241 Va. 232, 237, n. 2, 401. The purpose of the intergovernmental immunity doctrine is to protect the rights of the Federal Sovereign against state interference. Of course, it was well established long before Davis that the nondiscrimination principle of 4 U. S. C. § 111 and the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity prohibit a State from imposing a discriminatory tax on the United States or.
Griffith, supra, at 322. similarly situated litigants differently." tax immunity could be cured "either by extending [a Harper v. Virginia Dept. Similarly, we declined to afford the plaintiff full retroactive relief in Los Angeles Dept. curring in judgment). Once you create your profile, you will be able to: Claim the judgments where you have appeared by linking them directly to your profile and maintain a record of your body of work. 1557, 1558, 1581-1582, 1606 (1975).
2. Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 106-107 (1971)
See generally 241 Va., at 237, n. 2, 401 S. E. 2d, at 871, n. 2. §58.1-1826 (1991). E. Carpenter, Attorney General of Maine, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General of Maryland, Scott Harshbarger, Attorney General of Massachusetts, Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General of Michigan, Hubert H. Humphrey III, Attorney General of Minnesota, Michael C. Moore, Attorney General of Mississippi, Marc Racicot, Attorney General of Montana, Don Stenberg, Attorney General of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del Papa, Attorney General of Nevada, John P. Arnold, Attorney General of New Hampshire, Robert J. Del Tufo, Attorney General of New Jersey, Tom Udall, Attorney General of New Mexico, Robert Abrams, Attorney General of New York, Lee Fisher, Attorney General of Ohio, Susan B. Loving, Attorney General of Oklahoma, Charles S. Crookham, Attorney General of Oregon, Ernest D. Preate, Jr., Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Jorge Perez-Diaz, Attorney General of Puerto Rico, James E. O'Neil, Attorney General of Rhode Island, A. Crawford Clarkson, Jr., Mark Barnett, Attorney General of South Dakota, Charles W Burson, Attorney General of Tennessee, Dan Morales, Attorney General of Texas, Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General of Vermont, Rosalie Simmonds Ballentine, Attorney General of the Virgin Islands, Kenneth O. Eikenberry, Attorney General of Washington, Mario J. Palumbo, Attorney General of West Virginia, Joseph B. Meyer, Attorney General of Wyoming, and James E. Doyle, Jr., Attorney General of Wisconsin; for the city of New York by O. Peter Sherwood, Edward F. X. Hart, and Stanley Buchsbaum; and for the National Governors' Association et al. FOR ONLY $13.90/PAGE, ← Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Sac and Fox Nation, Local 144 Nursing Home Pension Fund v. Demisay →, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Pauley. We cast over the first half six Terms ago in Griffith, and deep-sixed most of the rest two Terms ago in James B. Beam Distilling Co. v. Georgia, 501 U. S. 529 (1991)-in neither case unceremoniously (in marked contrast to some of the overrulings cited in text). events predate or postdate our announcement of the rule. Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, Fla. Dept. Reich, 513 U.S. at ___, 115 S.Ct. I do not see why the Due Process Clause would. Virginia Department of Taxation In Harper v. Virginia Department of Taxation,1 the United States Supreme Court declined to explicitly alter the test for determining the retroactivity of a decision declaring a state tax unconstitutional. It too concluded, after consulting Chevron and the plurality opinion in American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Smith, 496 U.S. 167 (1990), that "the Davis decision is not to be applied retroactively."
taxpayers "a meaningful opportunity to withhold payment and to obtain As Justice Souter wrote: We do not speculate as to the bounds or propriety of pure prospectivity. The circumstances in McKesson were quite different than those here. of Taxation, 241 Va. 232, 401 S. E. 2d 868 (1991). retroactive or prospective as it sees fit and that selective application
accord full retroactive effect to Davis as a controlling ); "[B]ecause the retroactivity issue was not decided in Davis," the court believed that it was "not foreclosed by precedent from applying the three-pronged Chevron Oil test in deciding the retroactivity issue in the present case."
Stat. Souter, J.).
permitted the denial of retroactive effect to "a new principle of law" if such a limitation would avoid " `injustice or We do not enter L. Rev. assessments were neither erroneous nor improper and that a decision with respect to the litigants" before the court, no court The Court then remanded Reich's case to the Supreme Court of Georgia for further consideration in light of Harper II. S. E. 2d, at 631. over the meaning of this dicta in American Trucking 900770 and 900792) THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BLACKMUN, STEVENS, SCALIA, and SOUTER, JJ., joined, and in Parts I and III of which WHITE and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. . at 2519 (quoting McKesson Corp. v. Division of Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco, 496 U.S. 18, 39-40, 110 S. Ct. 2238, 2251-52, 110 L. Ed. But the debate is as meaningless as it is indeterminate.
application of the rule announced in Davis to the parties But, as the controlling opinion in James B. Beam explains, McKesson cannot be so read. * Enter a valid Journal (must Mindful of the "basic norms of constitutional adjudication" that animated Instead, federal retirees were treated identically to all other retirees, with a single and numerically insignificant exception-retirees whose retirement benefits were paid by the State. What little, if any, remains is teetering at the end of the plank and needs no more than a gentle nudge. . prior to its payment, or by allowing taxpayers to withhold payment and then interpose their objections as defenses in a tax enforcement proceeding." Therefore, the Court held, "the Supreme Court of Virginia must apply Davis in [Harper's] refund action."
Retroactive application of rulings that invalidate state tax laws have the potential for producing "disruptive consequences for the State[s] and [their] citizens. permitted the solely prospective application of the ruling, the State However, the Department overlooks this important passage from the Reich opinion: Given the clear applicability of Code § 58.1-1826, we are of opinion that no reasonable taxpayer would have thought that a declaratory judgment proceeding, even assuming its constitutional adequacy an issue upon which we express no view represented the exclusive remedy for relief from unlawful taxes in Virginia. 1989 Va. Acts, Special Sess. Id. 501 U. S., at 546 (opinion concurring in judgment). The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed. consider whether to confine "the application of [American retroactively after the case announcing the rule has As a matter of Virginia law, the court held, a "ruling declaring a taxing scheme unconstitutional is to be applied prospectively only." . HARPER et al.