Suchergebnisse

State and local taxation comprises those taxes that are collected at the sub-federal government levels in order to finance state and local public services, assigning discretion in the determination of rates and bases of these taxes to sub-federal governments. Consider a nation with different layers of government that are only serving administrative purposes. Each government level only distributes the public services to and collects the taxes from that nation's citizens upon which they agreed at the national level. In such a country, no state or local taxation is necessary since the level of public goods and services is uniformly decided upon for the whole country. This leaves citizens in some local jurisdictions, which prefer more public services than the national average, as much dissatisfied as citizens in local jurisdictions, which prefer less. It is possible to provide public services, the benefits of which are geographically limited and which are not national in scope, at different levels in different sub-federal jurisdictions. Enabling citizens to consume publicly provided goods and services at different levels according to their preferences makes everyone better off without making someone worse off. In order to let people, who want to consume more, pay a higher tax price for those state and local services, taxes must be differentiated accordingly between states and local jurisdictions. In such a world with a differentiated supply of publicly provided goods, each individual can reside in a jurisdiction where a certain level of public services is provided to adequate tax prices. The art of state and local taxation is the assignment of different kinds of taxes to government levels such that an invisible hand properly guides a nation in an ideal world to an optimal multi-unit fiscal system. This is not necessarily the case in the real world and some answers exist why fiscal systems are not optimal.

The commerce clause as an instrument of federalism facilitates a system of government that places a national government over fifty sovereign states. Federalism requires a balancing of the interest in a unified national approach to government with the competing interest in state sovereignty. As Justice Brennan explained: "Our Constitution is an instrument of federalism. The Constitution furnishes the structure for the operation of the States with respect to the National Government and with respect to each other. .Because there are 49 States and much of the Nation's commercial activity is carried on by enterprises having contacts with more States than one, a common and continuing problem of constitutional interpretation has been that of adjusting the demands of individual States to regulate and tax these enterprises in light of the multi-state nature of our federation." The commerce clause provides: "The Congress shall have Power . To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."' The commerce clause has been interpreted not only as conferring power on the national government to regulate commerce, but also as limiting the states' power to interfere with commerce. This restriction on state power often is referred to as the "negative implication of the commerce clause" or as the "dormant commerce clause" principle. Under the authority of the commerce clause, the United States Supreme Court has struck down as unconstitutional a variety of state regulatory and taxation measures as unduly burdening commerce.