We are asked to reverse a decision of the Supreme Court of Arkansas holding that the Commerce Clause precludes liability for the sales tax of that State upon the transactions to be set forth.
We take the descriptions of these transactions from the opinion under review. Respondents are Tennessee corporations with home offices and places of business in Memphis where they sell machinery and mill supplies. They are not qualified to do business in Arkansas and have neither sales office, branch plant nor any other place of business in that State. Orders for goods come to Tennessee through solicitation in Arkansas by traveling salesmen domiciled in Tennessee, by mail or telephone. But no matter how an order is placed it requires acceptance by the Memphis office, and on approval the goods are shipped from Tennessee. Title passes upon delivery to the carrier in Memphis, and collection of the sales price is not made in Arkansas. In short, we are here concerned with sales made by Tennessee vendors that are consummated in Tennessee for the delivery of goods in Arkansas.
For such sales, the Supreme Court of Arkansas had held, in 1939, the State had no power to exact a sales tax, Mann v. McCarroll, 198 Ark. 628, 130 S.W.2d 721. The Arkansas legislation then in force was Act 154 of 1937. The transactions on which the Collector here seeks to tax extended over periods that bring into question Act 154 (extended by Act 364 of 1939) and a new Statute (Act 386 of 1941), known as the Gross Receipts Act. The Arkansas Supreme Court gave the Act of 1941 the same scope and significance as it attributed to the Act of 1937, that is, an act imposing a retail sales tax and not a use tax. In view of this construction, it has adhered to its earlier decision in Mann v. McCarroll, finding nothing in our intervening decision in McGoldrick v. Berwind-White Coal Co., 309 U.S. 33, 60 S.Ct. 388, 84 L.Ed. 565, 128 A.L.R. 876, requiring a change in its constitutional views. 205 Ark. 780, 171 S.W.2d 62. To permit further examination of the complicated problems raised by the interplay of federal and state powers we brought the case here. 320 U.S. 728, 64 S.Ct. 87.