Louis Brandeis

“ Corporations other than those engaged in banking are taxed by assessing to them all of their property not exempt from taxation, in the same manner that the property of an individual is assessed to him. ”

“ It is contended that the statutes violate, on their face, the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, since banks are taxed more heavily than loan companies, finance and securities companies, pawnbrokers, homestead and building associations, Federal Joint Stock Land Banks, life insurance companies, real estate mortgage and investment, or bond and investment brokers; and that the court must take judicial notice that all of these other corporations lend money in competition with the plaintiffs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is argued that national banks might conceivably be prevented from engaging in actual competition with other moneyed capital by reason of the very features complained of in the taxing statutes. Compare People ex rel. ”