The U.S. Supreme Court case Charles J. Reich v. Marcus E. Collins, Revenue Commissioner of Georgia et al., 1994 revolved around the issue of whether a state could tax retirement benefits received by former federal employees while exempting those received by retired state and local government employees from taxation without violating the doctrine of intergovernmental tax immunity or equal protection clause under the Fourteenth Amendment. Charles J. Reich, a retired federal employee residing in Georgia, challenged that he was being unfairly taxed on his pension income compared to retirees from state and local governments who were not subjected to such taxes. However, the court ruled against Reich stating that there was no violation as long as there is significant difference between two classes (federal retirees vs state/local retirees) for justifying differential treatment; here it was found valid because states have legitimate interest in favoring their own civil servants due to reciprocal relationship with them unlike Federal Government's relationship with its employees.

In the dissenting opinion for Reich v. Collins, Justice Scalia disagreed with the majority's decision that Georgia's tax scheme violated due process rights. He argued that it was not a violation of due process to require taxpayers to pay first and litigate later, as long as they had an opportunity to challenge their tax assessment in court eventually. Furthermore, he contended that there was no constitutional requirement for states to provide pre-deprivation hearings before collecting taxes or penalties from citizens. The justice also criticized the Court’s reliance on fairness considerations rather than legal principles in reaching its decision.