636 HARVARD LAW REVIEW of corporation that was before it, does not mean to suggest any such distinction between foreign and domestic corporations as ap- pears to be made in dealing with excises measured by total capital stock.* And that the opinion is not confined to corporations is apparent from another paragraph in which reference is made to ^'persons." After distinguishing a tax on gross receipts from one on net income, Mr. Justice Pitney says of the latter: "Such a tax, when imposed upon net incomes from whatever source arising, is but a method of distributing the cost of government, like a tax upon property, or upon franchises treated as property; and if there be no discrimination against interstate commerce, either in the admeas- urement of the tax or in the means adopted for enforcing it, it con- stitutes one of the ordinary and general burdens of government, from which persons and corporations otherwise subject to the jurisdiction of the States are not exempted by the Federal Constitution because they happen to be engaged in commerce among the States." ' The quahfying phrase "otherwise subject to the jurisdiction of the state" opens the door to the inquiry whether a foreign cor- poration engaged exclusively in interstate commerce could be taxed on its net income earned within the state. Such corporations are "subject to the jurisdiction of the state" from the standpoint of service of judicial process,^** and taxation of property." But they
- Compare Looney v. Crane Co., 245 U. S. 178, 38 Sup. Ct. Rep. 85 (1917), 31
Harv. L. Rev. 600-18, with Kansas City, M. & B. R. R. Co. v. Stiles, 242 U. S. iii, 37 Sup. Ct. Rep. 58 (1916), 31 Harv. L. Rev. 599-600. See also 33 Poutical Science Quarterly, 557, note i. • 247 U. S. 321, 329, 38 Sup. Ct. Rep. 499 (1918). . " International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, 234 U. S. 579, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 944 (1914). " This does not appear to have been established by explicit decision, but the many cases holding that foreign corporations engaged partly in interstate commerce are not entitled to exemption from property taxation convey no hint that the result would be different if the business in which the property was employed was exclusively interstate. In St. Louis v. Wiggins Ferry Co., 11 Wall. (78 U. S.) 423 (1871), the only reason given for holding that the property of a foreign corporation engaged exclu- sively in interstate commerce was not taxable in St. Louis was that the property had no taxable situs there. In Henderson Bridge Co. v. Kentucky, 166 U. S. 150, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 532 (1897), in which Kentucky was allowed to tax the Kentucky part of an interstate bridge owned by a Kentucky corporation, it appeared from the statement of facts that lUinois had assessed that part of the bridge which lay within its borders. In Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196, 206, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 826 (1885), Mr. Justice Field declared: "It is true that the property of corporations en- gaged in foreign or interstate commerce, as well as the property of corporations
