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Supreme Court hears arguments on constitutionality of Alaska ship tax

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in Polar Tankers v. City of Valdez, where the Court will consider whether a municipal tax that falls exclusively on large vessels in the city's harbor violates the Tonnage Clause (Art. 1 § 10 cl. 3), the Commerce Clause (Art. 1 § 8 cl. 3), or the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause of the US Constitution. The city of Valdez, Alaska, imposes a tax on oil tankers and other large vessels using its port to pick up and deliver crude oil. The Alaska Supreme Court upheld the tax. Counsel for Polar Tankers argued that, because the tax effectively only targeted these ships, and neither other vessels nor other property, the city had violated constitutional restrictions:The Valdez vessel tax violates the Constitution's Tonnage Clause because it operates as a charge on a privilege of trading in the port of Valdez, and that tax is apportioned in a way that is guaranteed to tax extraterritorial values and values that do not have a connection to the city. That violates the Due Process and Commerce Clauses.Counsel for the city argued that "no ad valorem property tax has ever been held to violate the Tonnage Clause."

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on April 01, 2009 (boomark / email).