James Clark McReynolds

“ That, where income from bonds of the United States which by act of Congress is exempt from state taxation is reached purposely, in the case of corporation owned bonds, by exempting the income therefrom in the hands of the corporations, and taxing only so much of the stockholder's dividends as corresponds to the corporate income not assessed, the tax is invalid. ”

“ Companies that have tax-exempt securities are not entitled to a double deduction and those that have no tax-exempt securities still have reserves which they hold for the protection of their policy holders and Congress has fairly allowed a deduction of a percentage of those reserves. ”

“ In granting this favor, in the interest of policyholders, Congress was entitled to consider the deduction already allowed for income in tax-exempt securities.' [8]
There is no suggestion that in fact Congress discriminated against tax-exempt bonds, or against insurance companies as holders thereof. [9] In the Senate, it was stated that all the life insurance companies favored the measure. [10] There is no suggestion of a purpose in Congress to favor some companies at the expense of others. ”

“ Discrimination is the act of treating differently two persons or things, under like circumstances. Compare Merchants' Bank v. Pennsylvania, 167 U.S. 461, 463, 17 S.C.t. 829, 42 L. Ed. 236. Here the sole complaint is that the two, although the circumstances are unlike, are treated equally. ”

“ In the case of a foreign life insurance company, the same percentage of its net income from sources within the United States as is imposed upon the net income of other corporations by section 230.' Comp. ”