Joyce, Sarah

English

Via Sapientiae: The Institutional Repository at DePaul University

DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law Volume 3 Issue 2 Spring 1993 Article 6 Department of Revenue v. Magazine Publishers, 604 So.2d 459 (Fla. 1992) Sarah Joyce Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/jatip Recommended Citation Sarah Joyce, Department of Revenue v. Magazine Publishers, 604 So.2d 459 (Fla. 1992), 3 DePaul J. Art, Tech. & Intell. Prop. L. 79 (1993) Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/jatip/vol3/iss2/6 This Case Summaries is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Law at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law by an authorized editor of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact digitalservices@depaul.edu. CASE SUMMARIESDepartment of Revenue v.Magazine Publishers,604 So.2d ,459 (Fla. 1992).INTRODUCTIONPlaintiffs, Magazine Publishers of America, Inc.,The Hearst Corporation, Time, Inc., Golf Digest/Tennis Inc., and Meredith Corp. a group of magazinepublishers, brought suit against the Florida Depart-ment of Revenue challenging the constitutionality of atax on retail sales of magazines in Florida. The impo-sition of the tax was found to be unconstitutionalunder the First Amendment since the tax exemptedsales of newspapers and was not narrowly drawn toachieve a compelling state interest. Following Floridalaw the Florida Supreme Court held that the differen-tiation between magazines and newspapers wasinvalid and that the newspaper exemption should beeliminated.FACTSThe Florida Department of Revenue imposed asales tax on the retail sales of magazines. The statuteexplicitly exempted the sale of newspapers from thetax. The trial court granted the plaintiff's Motion forSummary Judgment, as well as the Summary Judge-ment Motions of the intervenors, Miami HeraldPublishing Co. and the Florida Press Association,thereby invalidating the tax on magazines. Uponappeal by the Department of Revenue, the FirstDistrict Court of Appeals certified that the trial court'sorder passed upon a question of great public impor-tance requiring immediate resolution by the FloridaSupreme Court. The Florida Supreme Court heard thecase and upon review reversed the trial court's orderas to the remedy, concluding that the proper solutionunder state law was to eliminate the exemption fornewspapers. The United States Supreme Court grant-ed certiorari upon petition from the Miami HeraldPublishing Co., vacated the judgment of the FloridaSupreme Court and remanded for further considera-tion in light of Leathers v. Medlock.'LEGAL ANALYSISIn deciding whether the tax on magazines violatesthe First Amendment, a determination must be madewhether the taxation scheme is a generally appliedscheme or a differential scheme.2 While a state mayimpose a generally applied taxation scheme on themedia without raising First Amendment issues, a taxa-tion scheme which differentiates between members ofthe media may trigger strict scrutiny under the FirstAmendment.' A differential taxation scheme is subjectto strict scrutiny analysis under the First Amendmentif the tax 1) singles out the press; 2) targets a smallgroup of speakers; or 3) discriminates on the basis ofthe content of the speech.' In order to withstand strictscrutiny analysis, the tax must serve some compellingstate interest and must be narrowly tailored to achievethat end.'The Florida court compared the facts of this caseto Leathers v. Medlock and Arkansas Writers'Project v.Ragland.' In Leathers, the United States SupremeCourt found an Arkansas differential taxation schemevalid which imposed a sales tax on cable and satellitetelevision, but exempted both magazine and newspa-per sales. The court found that Arkansas was simplyextending a generally applicable sales tax to cableand satellite services while exempting the printmedia. This scheme did not single out the press, tar-get a small group of speakers or discriminate on thebasis of content, and therefore, did not violate theFirst Amendment.7 In Arkansas Writers', the schemetaxed general magazines but exempted religious, pro-fessional, trade and sports journals, as well as news-papers. Here the scheme violated the FirstAmendment because the tax burden fell on a smallgroup of publishers and could not be justified understrict scrutiny.8 Because the taxation scheme at issuetreats magazines differently than newspapers byexempting newspapers from the tax, the FloridaSupreme Court found the scheme was differential.9In determining whether the differential taxationscheme was content-based, the court looked beyondthe content-neutral language of the statute to considerthe deposition of the Assistant Executive Director ofthe Department of Revenue, and the Florida Admin-istrative Code which guides the Department in imple-menting the statute. The Director stated that theDepartment would "review the content of the publica-tion" in determining whether it qualifies for the news-paper exemption under the Florida AdministrativeCode. The applicable provisions of the Code specifythe necessary purpose and content for a publicationto constitute a newspaper.1 Therefore, the court con-cluded that the statute's differential taxation schemewas content-based and applied strict scrutiny."In attempting to overcome strict scrutiny, theDepartment of Revenue first argued that the newspa-per exemption served the compelling governmentinterest of encouraging literacy and general knowl-edge. The court held that although this was a com-pelling state interest, magazines as well as newspa-pers provide an enormous amount of information tothe public, so the statute was not narrowly drawn tofurther that end. 2Next the state argued that the compelling interestSpring, 1993 79 1Joyce: Department of Revenue v. Magazine Publishers, 604 So.2d 459 (Fla.Published by Via Sapientiae, 2016

Department of Revenue v. Magazine Publishers, 604 So.2d 459 (Fla. 1992)

https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1484&context=jatip

Department of Revenue v. Magazine Publishers, 604 So.2d 459 (Fla. 1992)

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Via Sapientiae: The Institutional Repository at DePaul University