offset by inadequate service or delayed maintenance. All of these considerations must be weighed by the Commission with wartime transportation needs as well as avoiding inflationary tendencies as a public responsibility. The need for informed, expert and unbiased judgment is apparent. The problem is intricate, the carrier is one of peculiar characteristics, its wartime traffic is of varying density, with peaks and rush hours, the rates and carrying capacities of competitors by bus and ferry are involved in any estimate of traffic diversions or probable effects of rates. What rates are required to meet actual and proper operating expenses, what revenue must be available to avoid defaults and sustain credit, what divisions should be made on interchanged traffic are as complex problems in rate-making as can readily be imagined. The delicacy of the Commission's task in wartime is no reason for allowing greater scope to judicial review than we are willing to exercise in peacetime. We think the weight to be given to the Price Administrator's contentions was for the Commission, not the court, to determine. The scope of proper judicial review does not expand or contract, depending on what party invokes it. It is as narrow now as it was when appealed to by the Company. Cf. Hudson & Manhattan R. Co. v. United States, 313 U. S. 98. If Congress desires to grant its own agencies greater privileges of judicial review than have been allowed to private parties it is at liberty to do so, but it is not for the Court to set aside, without legislative command, its slow-wrought general principles which protect the finality and integrity of decisions by administrative tribunals.

As to the contention that the Stabilization Act gave the Administrator standing superior to that of other litigants to ask the courts to override the normal discretion of the Commission in granting or refusing rehearings, we have already spoken in Vinson v. Washington Gas Light Co.,

DOUGLAS, J., dissenting.

322 U.S.

321 U. S. 489. There, as here, the Stabilization Director insisted that he was "denied a fair hearing because the Commission refused in the current proceeding to alter and enlarge the scope of inquiry." There, as here, the controversy was "between two governmental agencies as to whether the powers of the one or the other are preponderant in the circumstances." Here, as there, we decline to invade the discretion of administrative tribunals to control their own rehearing procedure where the Congress has not given the Administrator standing superior to that of a litigant and has not divested the Commission of its ordinary discretions. The judgment below is

MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE dissents.

Reversed.

MR. JUSTICE BLACK took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS:

I would decide this case differently. I think this decision and Vinson v. Washington Gas Light Co., 321 U. S. 489, pretty well emasculate the provision of the Act of October 2, 1942 (56 Stat. 765) which prohibits "any general increase” in utility rates unless notice is given to the federal agency in charge of inflation control and that agency is allowed to intervene in the proceedings. As I stated in my dissent in Vinson v. Washington Gas Light Co., supra, Congress intended by that provision that there should be as great an accommodation as possible between established standards for rate-making and existing wartime necessities. General rate increases were not to be allowed unless, for example, it was shown that they were necessary to preserve existing facilities under war conditions. I agree with Judge McLaughlin and Judge Meaney of the three-judge court that this emergency legislation

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DOUGLAS, J., dissenting.

required the Commission "to give full effect to wartime conditions and the stabilization legislation." It was that policy which was reflected in Executive Order 9328 promulgated by the President on April 8, 1943 (8 Fed. Reg. 4681, 4682) and providing as follows:

"The attention of all agencies of the Federal Government, and of all State and municipal authorities, concerned with the rates of common carriers or other public utilities, is directed to the stabilization program of which this order is a part so that rate increases will be disapproved and rate reductions effected, consistently with the Act of October 2, 1942, and other applicable federal, state or municipal law, in order to keep down the cost of living and effectuate the purposes of the stabilization program.'

That policy is once more disregarded. The Interstate Commerce Commission proceeds to grant rate increases on the basis of peacetime standards. It justifies the increase under the Act of October 2, 1942, by saying that the increase per consumer is negligible. By the same token every item in the list of consumer necessities could be increased a like percentage. What was negligible item by item would soon be substantial in the aggregate. That which first appears as a small trickle may eventually undermine the dam.

But though I disagree with the result reached, I think it is precisely what Vinson v. Washington Gas Light Co. intended. That case and Davies Warehouse Co. v. Bowles, 321 U. S. 144, give preferred treatment to a few businesses by allowing them to gain advantages from war conditions. I would overrule them. But so long as they stand I do not see how we can deny the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to do for the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad Co. what another commission was allowed to do for the Washington Gas Light Co.

MR. JUSTICE MURPHY joins in this opinion.

322 U.S.

Opinion of the Court.

WISCONSIN GAS & ELECTRIC CO. v. UNITED STATES.

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT.

No. 565. Argued March 10, 1944.-Decided May 29, 1944.

1. Payments made by a corporation of the tax levied by the Wisconsin Privilege Dividend Tax Act, held, for federal income tax purposes, not deductible from gross income of the corporation, either under § 23 (c) or § 23 (d) of the Revenue Act of 1934. Pp. 529, 531. 2. The payments were not deductible under § 23 (c) as "taxes paid," since, within the meaning of applicable Treasury Regulations, the tax was not "imposed" on the corporation. P. 529.

3. Nor were the payments deductible under § 23 (d) as "taxes imposed upon a shareholder of the corporation upon his interest as shareholder which are paid by the corporation without reimbursement from the shareholder," since, within the meaning of the section, the tax was not "paid by the corporation without reimbursement from the shareholder." P. 531.

138 F.2d 597, affirmed.

CERTIORARI, 321 U. S. 757, to review a judgment for the company, 46 F. Supp. 929, in a suit for a refund of federal income tax.

Mr. Van B. Wake for petitioner.

Assistant Attorney General Samuel O. Clark, Jr., with whom Solicitor General Fahy, and Messrs. Sewall Key, J. Louis Monarch, and Ray A. Brown were on the brief, for the United States.

MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE delivered the opinion of the Court.

Wisconsin Gas and Electric Company is a Wisconsin corporation engaged in public utility and associated operations wholly within that State. In 1935 it declared a dividend from its public utility earnings, and in accord

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Opinion of the Court.

ance with the requirements of Wisconsin's Privilege Dividend Tax Act (Wisconsin Laws of 1935, c. 505, § 3; c. 552), it paid to the State two and one-half per cent of the amount of dividends thus declared. It now claims this sum, $3,750, as a deduction from its gross income for 1935 for federal income tax purposes.

After the claim was disallowed and a deficiency assessed, the company paid the tax and brought this suit for refund under 28 U. S. C. § 41 (20). The District Court was of the opinion that the decision in Wisconsin v. J. C. Penney Co., 311 U. S. 435, required permitting the deduction under § 23 (c) of the Revenue Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 680, 688. It therefore gave judgment for the company. 46 F. Supp. 929. The Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed on this question and, holding the deficiency correctly determined, reversed the judgment. 138 F. 2d 597. We granted certiorari, 321 U. S. 757, because of the claimed conflict with the Penney case and the importance of the question in the administration of the revenue laws.

Petitioner's claim for a refund rests on the assertion it was entitled to deduct the Privilege Dividend Tax payments under either § 23 (c) or § 23 (d) of the Revenue Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 680, 688, 689.

Section 23 (c) allows a taxpayer to deduct from gross income "taxes paid or accrued within the taxable year." The relevant Treasury Regulation, which is of long standing,1 includes among "taxes paid" those imposed by any State, and provides: "In general taxes are deductible only by the person upon whom they are imposed." The question in this branch of the case, therefore, comes down to whether the Privilege Dividend Tax is "imposed" upon the corporation declaring the dividends.

1 Treasury Regulations 86, Art. 23 (c)-(1); cf. Treasury Regulations 65, Art. 131; Treasury Regulations 69, Art. 131; Treasury Regulations 74, Art. 151; Treasury Regulations 77, Art. 151.