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Twin Coast Newspapers, Inc. v. State Tax Commission

64 N.Y.2d 874 Court N.Y. Decision date 1985-02-21 English

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p. 874
In the Matter of Twin Coast Newspapers, Inc., Appellant, v State Tax Commission, Respondent.
Argued February 8, 1985;
decided February 21, 1985
p. 875
APPEARANCES OF COUNSEL
Claude E. Johnston, Garett J. Albert, William L. Burke and Lisa Norton for appellant.
Robert Abrams, Attorney-General (Francis V. Dow, Robert Hermann and Peter H. Schiff of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

Memorandum.

The appeal should be dismissed, without costs.

Petitioner appeals from an Appellate Division order confirming a determination of the State Tax Commissioner that its “EXIT” and “ISIS” reports — computer printouts setting forth for each subscriber individually relevant statistics compiled from publications — are not “newspapers” exempt from sales and use taxes under Tax Law § 1115 (a) (5). The purported jurisdictional basis for this appeal is that a substantial constitutional question is directly involved (see, CPLR 5601 [b] [1]) in that the imposition of sales and use taxes on “EXIT” and “ISIS”,

p. 876
which petitioner urges are newspapers, violates its 1st Amendment rights. If the reports were in fact newspapers entitled to constitutional protection, they would under the statute automatically be exempt from the tax. Since a question of statutory interpretation would be dispositive, this appeal must be dismissed (Cohen and Karger, Powers of the New York State Court of Appeals § 59, at 266-68 [rev ed]; see also, Matter of Rueff, 273 NY 530 ).

Appeal dismissed, without costs, in a memorandum.

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