Pierce Butler

“ The power of a state to regulate the transaction of a local business within its borders by a foreign corporation meaning a corporation of a sister state-is not unrestricted or absolute, but must be exerted in subordination to the limitations which the Constitution places on state action. ”

“ The number of nonpar value shares of the corporation is not an indication of, and does not purport to be a representation as to, the amount of its capital. Each outstanding share represents merely an aliquot part of its assets. The number of shares not subscribed or issued has no relation to the privilege held by plaintiff in Ohio, and it is not a reasonable measure of such a fee. Such shares may never be subscribed or issued, or additional shares may be issued to acquire property or do business in other states or to carry on interstate commerce. ”

“ That a foreign corporation is partly, or even chiefly, engaged in interstate commerce does not prevent a state in which it has property and is doing a local business from taxing that property and imposing a license fee or excise in respect of that business, but the state cannot require the corporation as a condition of the right to do a local business therein to submit to a tax on its interstate business or on its property outside the state. ”