Hugo Black

“ To contend that the 1933 Act allows the State to tax Federal Associations on the loan transactions when it is barred by the 1932 Act from similarly taxing state-chartered associations is to urge the very kind of discriminatory taxation which the 1933 Act itself emphatically prohibits. And surely it would be completely unwarranted to construe the 1933 Act, which concerns only Federal Savings and Loan Associations, as eliminating the exemption on Home Loan Bank 'advances' when the borrower is a state-chartered institution. ”

“ In its impact, therefore, this tax, whether nominally imposed on the Bank or on the petitioner, is bound to increase the cost of loans to home owners and thus contravene the basic purpose of Congress in insulating these advances from state taxation. We hold that it was error to construe the exemption provision of the 1932 Act as not broad enough to bar imposition of the State's stamp taxes on the notes which were an integral part of these loan transactions. ”

“ The factors given weight in the Pittman opinion in deciding that the exemption covered the entire loan transaction are also present here. The Act under consideration there required that the loans 'be secured by a duly recorded home mortgage' just as here the Act requires the advances to be secured by the note or obligation of the borrower. Here, as we said in Pittman, therefore, the documents sought to be taxed 'were indispensable elements in the lending operations authorized by Congress' [10] and were required for the protection of the lending institution. ”