United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Madden v Commissioner, 309 U.S. 83 (1940)

Madden v Commissioner

No. 92

Argued December 14, 1939

Decided January 29, 1940

309 U.S. 83

Syllabus

1. A statute by which a State taxed deposits in banks outside of the State at fifty cents per hundred dollars and deposits in banks within the State at ten cents per hundred dollars held consistent with the due process, equal protection, and privileges and immunities clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 309 U. S. 86.

2. In taxation, even more than in other fields, legislatures possess the greatest freedom in classification. The presumption of constitutionality can be overcome only by the most explicit demonstration that a classification is a hostile and oppressive discrimination against particular persons and classes. P. 309 U. S. 87.

3. The treatment accorded the two kinds of deposits in this case may have resulted from the differences in the difficulties and expenses of tax collection. P. 309 U. S. 89.

4. The right to carry out an incident to a trade, business, or calling, such as the deposit of money in banks, is not a privilege of national citizenship, protected by the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496, expounded; Colgate v. Harvey, 296 U. S. 404, in part overruled. P. 309 U. S. 90.

277 Ky. 343; 126 S.W.2d 463, affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment sustaining the assessment and taxation of a decedent's bank deposits, in a suit against the executor of his will in the name of the Kentucky.

Page 309 U. S. 85