Direct Marketing Assn. v. Brohl
The Supreme Court ruled that a federal law barring lawsuits against state tax collection, the Tax Injunction Act, does not stop a trade group's challenge to Colorado's notice-and-reporting rules for online retailers that don't collect sales tax.
The decision lets the case go forward in federal court, reviving a dispute over how far states can go in pressuring out-of-state and online sellers to help enforce sales and use tax collection without directly taxing them.
“a suit cannot be understood to "restrain" the "assessment, levy or collection" of a state tax if it merely inhibits those activities”
The Court's core holding on how narrowly the word 'restrain' should be read in the Tax Injunction Act.
How it got here: A federal trial court blocked Colorado's reporting rules; the Tenth Circuit reversed for lack of jurisdiction under the Tax Injunction Act; the retailers' group appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Colorado couldn't force out-of-state online retailers to collect sales tax directly, so it required those retailers to notify Colorado customers of their tax obligations and report purchase information to the state and to customers. A trade association representing catalog and online retailers sued, arguing these notice and reporting requirements unconstitutionally burdened interstate commerce. A federal trial court agreed and blocked the requirements.
The question before the Court
Could a federal law that blocks lawsuits over state tax collection also block a challenge to Colorado's rules requiring online retailers to report customer purchase data?
The Court's answer
No — the Tax Injunction Act did not block this lawsuit. The Court ruled that Colorado's notice and reporting requirements are not themselves acts of "assessment, levy, or collection" of a tax; they are earlier steps that merely gather information used later to assess and collect taxes. Because the federal statute's protection is keyed specifically to those three narrow terms, requirements that only make future tax collection easier fall outside its reach.
The Court also rejected a broader reading of the word "restrain" that would have swept in any rule that merely makes tax collection easier or harder. Reading "restrain" in its narrower, equity-based sense — one limited to orders that actually stop or compel assessment, levy, or collection — the Court found nothing in this lawsuit that crossed that line, so the retailers' association can pursue its case in federal court.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
The ruling reopens a federal court challenge to Colorado's reporting law, which requires online retailers to notify customers and the state about untaxed purchases. It also clarifies, for other states considering similar notice-and-reporting laws, that businesses can challenge such requirements in federal court rather than being forced into state tax courts first.
What changes now
The case returns to the Tenth Circuit and then likely the district court to resolve the merits of the trade association's claim that Colorado's notice and reporting rules unconstitutionally burden interstate commerce. The Court did not decide that constitutional question, and it also left open whether a separate legal doctrine called 'comity' might still lead courts to dismiss the suit, an issue the Tenth Circuit must now consider.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Colorado's notice and reporting requirements actually violate the Constitution's limits on burdening interstate commerce — that question goes back to the lower courts. It also left open whether a separate 'comity' doctrine, distinct from the statute at issue, could still require dismissal of the suit.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kennedy
Justice Kennedy joined the majority in full but wrote separately to argue that the Court's decades-old physical-presence rule barring states from requiring out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax, from Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, has become deeply unfair to states given the massive growth of e-commerce. He urged the legal system to bring a case that would let the Court reconsider Quill directly.
Concurrence — Justice Ginsburg
Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justice Breyer (and by Justice Sotomayor as to this point), stressed that the Tax Injunction Act was designed narrowly to stop taxpayers from dodging a 'pay first, sue for refund later' system, not to block every suit touching tax administration. She noted the Court left open whether a suit brought by an actual taxpayer or tax collector challenging reporting duties tied more directly to their own tax liability might be treated differently. She also argued the ruling is fully consistent with the Court's earlier decision in Hibbs v. Winn.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court asked whether enforcing Colorado's notice and reporting requirements counted as 'assessment, levy or collection' of a tax, the specific activities the Tax Injunction Act shields from federal court interference.
- Looking to how the federal tax code has long used these same words, the Court found that gathering information—like the notices and reports at issue—is treated as a step that happens before assessment, levy, or collection, not as part of those steps themselves.
- The Court rejected the state tax official's argument that the reporting rules were part of assessment and collection, noting that Colorado's own law requires further state action—actually assessing what a taxpayer owes and collecting it—only after the reports are filed.
- The Court then considered whether the word 'restrain' in the statute could sweep in the reporting requirements even if they aren't literally assessment, levy, or collection. It held that 'restrain' carries a narrower, equity-based meaning limited to orders that stop or compel those specific acts, not anything that merely makes them harder.
- Because the notice and reporting rules only make future tax collection easier rather than being acts of assessment, levy, or collection themselves, and because blocking them does not 'restrain' those acts in the narrow sense required, the federal Tax Injunction Act does not apply to bar this lawsuit.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Grace Brethren Church (457 U.S. 393)
The Court says that case doesn't control here because those plaintiffs never separated their tax challenge from their reporting-requirement challenge.
Reaffirms Hibbs (542 U.S. 88)
The Court treats Hibbs's narrow rule about third-party, non-taxpayer suits as still good law but unnecessary to invoke here.