U.S. Supreme Court FIRST NAT. BK. OF SHREVEPORT v. LOUISIANA TAX COM'N, 289 U.S. 60 (1933)

[Page 289 U.S. 60, 61]

Messrs. Howard B. Warren and Lewell C. Butler, both of Shreveport, La ., for appellants.

Mr. Elias Goldstein, of Shreveport, La., for appellees.

Mr. Justice BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.

Three national banks, located at Shreveport, La.,-the Commercial National, the First National, and the American National-brought, in a district court of that state, separate suits against the Tax Commission and officials of Caddo parish, to annul the assessment of all taxes, other than upon real estate, which had been imposed upon their corporate property for the year 1930, under Louisiana Act No. 14 of 1917, Extra Sess ., as amended by Act No. 116 of 1922 and Act No. 221 of 1928. The claim in each case was that the statute as applied is void, because other moneyed capital employed in the same locality in competition with the capital of the plaintiff is not taxed at all, or is taxed less heavily, in violation of both section 5219 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (12 USCA 548) and the equality clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. [Footnote 1]

[Page 289 U.S. 60, 67]

chattel mortgages. The national banks would never handle such business. They prefer to-and do in fact-lend to such companies.' These findings are supported by the record.

As we should not be warranted in disturbing these, or any of the other, findings of the Supreme Court complained of (compare Georgetown National Bank v. McFarland, 273 U.S. 568, 47 S.Ct. 467), we have no occasion to consider an alternative ground urged for affirmance- that the operation of the taxing system of the state resulted, in fact, in substantial equality between bank shares and other moneyed capital.

Affirmed. Footnotes

Footnote 1 There was also, in each case, a claim that a small tax had been laid illegally upon the plaintiff's furniture and fixtures. The rights of each plaintiff in this regard were expressly reserved by the decree of the Supreme Court of the state.