United States Third Circuit

In three consolidated appeals, judgments in favor of defendant-enterprises concluding that defendants were not required to pay state and local real estate transfer taxes under a federal statute exempting defendants from all taxation by any state or local government, with the exception that the states may tax the defendants' real property, are affirmed, where: 1) under the language of the statute, defendants are statutorily exempt from paying state and local real estate transfer taxes because a transfer tax is not a property tax even when the transfer is of property; 2) Congress acted well within the bounds of the Commerce Clause when it exempted defendants from paying state and local real estate transfer taxes; and 3) the statutory exemption is not an unconstitutional commandeering under the Tenth Amendment.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/18/2014
• Published 03/18/2014

Judges

• FISHER

Court

• United States Third Circuit

Counsel