“ The companies are all foreign corporations, and all are for present purposes equally within the jurisdiction of the state and subject to her power to tax. There is no basis or reason for making a distinction between them that has any pertinence to the imposition of a property tax such as is in question. The net receipts which are taxes are not different from those which are not taxed; and both come from the same source. Such a discrimination in respect of the taxation of real or tangible personal property obviously would be essentially arbitrary. ”

“ This comparison makes it clear that the business of fire insurance companies as carried on in Illinois is essentially a different one from the business generally known as that of casualty insurance, though the spheres coincide for the space of a small segment. A phase or department of one business may be akin to a phase or department of another, and still the kindred branches may bear unequal taxes. ”

“ Now, plainly, a tax on the net receipts of a business of a particular kind is not condemned as void for the reason that a like tax or an equal one is not laid on the net receipts of every other kind of business. ”

“ For the same reason, the proprietor of a retail market dealing in meats and groceries and vegetables and fruits will then escape, at least proportionately, a tax upon receipts if the statute does not cover the business of the shopkeeper who derives a modest income from the sale of peanuts and bananas. There are few taxes upon earnings that would pass so fine a sieve. The rule, if there is any, against the creation of overlapping classes for purposes of taxation is manifestly not one of general validity. ”

“ There must be a segregation of forms of business into their constituent activities, which, to the extent that there is identity, must be taxed for any one group as they are taxed for any other. Immunity from tax laws of unequal operation has never until now been pressed to that extreme. ”

“ By reason of the presumption of validity which attends legislative and official action one who alleges unreasonable discrimination must carry the burden of showing it. This has not been done as respects the claim now being considered. The defendant recognizes that the domestic corporations are subjected to some taxes not laid on the foreign corporations, a capital stock tax apparently being one. But the full situation is not shown; nor is it reflected in the opinion of the Supreme Court or the cases there cited. ”

“ If a tax were to be laid upon the earnings of a drug store, the acceptance of the appellant's argument would drive us to a holding that the receipts from the sale of edibles must be excluded from the reckoning in the absence of a like tax upon the proprietors of restaurants. Dealers of ready made clothing have a department of their business in which clothes are made to order. The appellant would have us say that the earnings from that department are exempt under the constitution from a tax upon receipts unless a like tax is laid upon the earnings of the merchant tailor. ”

“ Fire insurance companies in Illinois, though organized in other states, have never been allowed to do a general casualty business. It is misleading to argue about them on the assumption that they are appropriately described as casualty insurers. For a long time they were restricted to the risks of fire, lightning, and tornadoes, and those of inland navigation and transportation. ”

“ From the outset the defendant has insisted as part of its defense that the taxing act, if construed and applied as sustaining the taxes in question, denies to it the equal protection of the laws contrary to the prohibition of the Fourteenth Amendment. This appears in the stipulation under which the case was tried, in the opening statement of counsel at the trial, and elsewhere in the record. The Supreme Court, in the opinion, recites that this contention was made, and disposes of it by saying that a like contention was considered and overruled in Hanover Fire Insurance Co. ”

“ It is said that section 30 requires foreign fire insurance corporations to pay the tax not alone on their net receipts from fire, marine, and inland navigation insurance but also on their net receipts from casualty insurance, whereas foreign casualty insurance corporations severally conducting a casualty insurance business in direct competition with the foreign fire insurance corporations are not required to pay a tax on their net receipts or any equivalent tax. ”

“ Taxing by a uniform rule requires uniformity, not only in the rate of taxation, but also uniformi y in the mode of the assessment upon the taxable valuation. Uniformity in taxing implies equality in the burden of taxation, and this equality of burden cannot exist without uniformity in the mode of the assessment as well as in the rate per cent. ”

“ In 1926, this court held that the denial of the 30 per cent. debasement to foreign corporations brought about an inequality so gross in comparison with the burdens of domestic corporations as to vitiate the tax and the statute that imposed it. Hanover Insurance Co. v. Harding, 272 U.S. 494, 47 S.Ct. 179, 71 L.Ed. 372, 49 A.L.R. 713. Following that decision, the Supreme Court of Illinois receded from the position that it had taken in 1921, and held that there must be a debasement of value as in the case of taxes upon property. Hanover Fire Ins. Co. ”

“ For aught that appears it may be that taxes not applied to the foreign corporations are laid on the domestic corporations which are the substantial equivalent of the net receipts tax. For these reasons this claim of discrimination must fail. ”

“ The vice of any different principle may be known from its consequences. The drug store of today supplies many things besides medicines and surgical appliances. It has a counter where sandwiches and salads and ice cream and many other edibles are furnished to its customers. ”

“ In November, 1927, the defendant was cited by the board of review to appear before it on December 15 at a hearing on a proposed reassessment of the net receipts in the years covered by the returns of 1923-1926, and also on a review of the assessment by the board of assessors of the net receipts in the year covered by the return of 1927. ”

“ The stipulation shows that all of these foreign corporations are lawfully entitled by reason of licenses, etc., to conduct their respective businesses within the state; that the casualty corporations are conducting the 'same character' of casualty insurance business as the fire insurance corporations; that these businesses are competitive ”

“ In 1912 (Act of June 11, 1912 (2d Sp. Sess. 1911-12 p. 45) ) , the list was increased by adding the risk of damage to property through the use of motor vehicles, but not the risk of liability for damage to the person. ”