Union Bank & Trust Co. v. Phelps, 288 U.S. 181 (1933)

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Union Bank & Trust Co. v. Phelps

No. 346

Argued January 17, 1933
Decided February 6, 1933
288 U.S. 181

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA

Syllabus

1. Discrimination in state ad valorem taxation between corporation receiving deposits and doing a commercial banking business and their corporate and individual competitors in the business of lending money, by taxing the shares of the former and taxing the latter on a more favorable basis, or exempting them, held consistent with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 185.

2. Within the intendment of the Fourteenth Amendment, shares of national banks and shares of state banks are not essentially the same when considered from the standpoint of taxation; nor do they become so merely because the state has attempted to subject them to like treatment. P. 186.

3. Where a state’s scheme of taxation includes taxes on shares of state and national banks and less onerous burdens on other competing moneyed capital, so that the tax as to national banks is invalid and not enforced, the resulting discrimination against the state bank does not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 187.

4. The implied exemption from state taxation of federal instrumentalities, such as national bank, is not a source of congressional power to control state action in other matters. P. 188.

25 Ala. 238, 142 So. 552, affirmed.

Certiorari, 287 U.S. 588, to review the reversal of a judgment allowing recovery of money from a state tax collector.