California Motor Transport Co. v. State Board of Equalization

Defendant Board of Equalization appeals from a judgment, rendered by the court sitting without a jury, in favor of plaintiff corporation in its suit to recover payments made by it under protest, of sums which had been demanded by defendant as additional taxes and interest thereon due from plaintiff for the period of October 1, 1940, to December 31, 1942, under the California Motor Vehicle Transportation License Tax Law (see Stats. 1933, p. 928, as amended, Stats. 1935, p. 2176; Deering’s Gen Laws, 1937, Act 5130d), which was amended and transferred in 1941 (effective July 1, 1943) to the Revenue and Taxation Code (§§ 9601-10501). Inasmuch as the 1941 amendments did not materially alter those provisions of the law which are here involved, section numbers hereinafter cited will, unless otherwise specifically indicated, refer to the Revenue and Taxation Code.

The law provides for the licensing of operators of motor vehicles who for compensation transport persons or property *219 upon any public highway within the state (§ 9701), and imposes upon such operators a license tax at the rate of 3 per cent of their gross receipts from the operations included within the law (§ 9651). The…

I dissent. Under the California Motor Vehicle Transportation License Tax Law as construed by this court, an operator of motor vehicles engaged in intercity transportation of goods must include in the taxable gross receipts from such transportation revenue derived from services incidental to the intercity transportation. This court has held that receipts from a pickup and delivery service maintained for door-to-door delivery are taxable as part of the gross receipts from intercity transportation of the goods. (Bekins Van Lines, Inc. v. Johnson, 21 Cal.2d 135 [ 130 P.2d 421 ]; Southern California Freight Lines v. State Board of Equalization, 72 Cal.App.2d 26 [ 163 P.2d 776 ].) As in those cases, the pickup and delivery service in the present case was maintained by plaintiff for door-to-door delivery of goods moved between cities, and was as much a part of the intercity transportation. The facts found by the trial court establish no substantial difference between the taxpayers’ activities in those cases and the activities of plaintiff in the present case. The holding that- even though others must include revenue derived from a pickup and delivery service in their taxable gross…