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Business Taxes Law Guide—Revision 2024

Alcoholic Beverage Tax Law

United States Constitution, Amendment No. XXI Repeal of Eighteenth Amendment, Secs. 1, 2 and 3


§ 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

§ 2. The transportation or importation into any state, territory or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

§ 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by convention in the several states, as provided in the Constitution within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.

History—This amendment to the federal Constitution became effective December 5, 1933.

Imposition of importer's license fee constitutional.—The provision of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act imposing a license fee of five hundred dollars ($500) for the privilege of importing beer within the state does not violate the federal Constitution. The provision is valid under Section 2 of the Twenty-first Amendment. State Board of Equalization v. Young's Market Company, (1936) 299 U.S. 59.

Shipments through state.—The Twenty-first Amendment has no application to the transportation of liquor through a state; hence liquor purchased for shipment to Hawaii, but temporarily stored in San Francisco warehouses because of shortage of shipping space, is not subject to local property taxation. Von Hamm-Young Co. v. San Francisco, (1947) 29 Cal.2d 798.

Foreign imports.—Neither the state nor any of its subdivisions may impose a property tax on liquor imported from a foreign country while it remains in its original package, unconsigned and unsold on the assessment date, and still in the hands of the original importer. Parrott and Co. v. San Francisco, (1955) 131 Cal.App.2d 332.