October 23, 2020 — Alaska’s Supreme Court is weighing the legality of a raw fish tax that’s pumped at least $25 million into coastal communities over the past five years. But a lawsuit filed by a Washington state catcher/processor could change that.
Since the 1990s the state has taxed seafood caught by factory trawlers and floating processors through the Fisheries Resource Landing Tax.
Even though the fish is caught outside the 3-mile line in what’s considered federal waters, it’s often brought to Alaska fishing ports before loaded on cargo vessels and shipped overseas.
But seafood company Fisherman’s Finest has challenged the state’s tax in court, arguing it violates a pair of provisions of the U.S. Constitution that restricts coastal states from imposing tariffs or duties on goods brought in and out of a state.
Attorney Jim Torgerson told the Alaska Supreme Court on Wednesday that the U.S. Supreme Court wrote in 1996, “it has never upheld a state tax assessed directly on goods in import or export transit.”