Saban Rent-A-Car LLC, et al. v. Arizona Department of Revenue, et al.

The dormant Commerce Clause prohibits states from enacting laws regulating local resources or services that “fall by design” on nonresidents in a “predictably disproportionate way.” Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, Me., 520 U.S. 564, 579 (1997). Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 5-839 authorizes imposition of a tax on car rentals in Maricopa County that was deliberately designed to impose such a disproportionate burden, forcing nonresidents to bear a share of the taxation burden out of proportion to their use of rental cars through exemptions covering the types of rental vehicles residents typically use, and the reasons residents typically rent. Yet the Arizona Supreme Court disregarded the unambiguous and unrebutted evidence of the tax’s protectionist purpose because it found that the tax did not have a disproportionate effect on nonresidents. And it found the tax to lack this disproportionate effect solely because the tax was assessed on, and paid by, rental car companies, rather than the nonresidents themselves. The Questions Presented are these:

1. Whether a car-rental tax designed to foist a disproportionate share of the tax’s burden onto nonresidents is nonetheless immune from dormant Commerce Clause scrutiny simply because the tax is assessed on the companies that rent the cars rather than the nonresidents who are the ultimate target for the tax.

2. Whether evidence that a tax was intended to impose a disproportionate burden on nonresidents is relevant in determining whether a statute imposes an impermissibly discriminatory design. (I)