• Homepage
»
• Constitutional Law
»
• Individual Rights

16. In this case, the court will probably rule that

One affected magazine is a monthly publication devoted to history and politics. The magazine paid under protest the sales tax due on its sales according to the amended sales tax law. The magazine then, in federal district court, brought a challenge to the constitutionality of the statute and requested damages for the sales taxes paid. It contended that the new, narrower exemption restricted to sacred writings of recognized religious faiths violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Assume that the magazine has proper standing.

A law of a state imposed a generally applicable sales tax payable by the vendor. That law exempted from its provisions the sale of «all magazines, periodicals, newspapers, and books.» In order to raise additional revenue, the state legislature eliminated that broad exemption and substituted a narrower exemption. The new, narrower exemption excluded from the state sales tax only the sale of those «magazines, periodicals, newspapers, and books that are published or distributed by a recognized religious faith and that consist wholly of writings sacred to such a religious faith.»