Opinion of the Court. 263 U.S. of the state statute and the particulars in which it is said to be in conflict with them and with tax-exempting laws of the United States. The main provisions of the statute are found in §§ 1310, 1322, 1322-1a and 1325 of the Code of Iowa, which read as follows: "Sec. 1310. . All moneyed capital within the meaning of section fifty-two hundred nineteen of the revised statutes of the United States shall be listed and assessed against the owner thereof at his place of business, and if a corporation at its principal place of business, at the same rate as state, savings, national bank and loan and trust company stock is taxed, in the same taxing district, and at the actual value of the moneyed capital so invested. The person or corporation using moneyed capital in competition with bank capital shall furnish the assessor upon demand a full and complete itemized sworn statement showing the amount of moneyed capital so used." "Sec. 1322. Shares of stock of national banks and state and savings banks, and loan and trust companies, located in this state, shall be assessed to the individual stockholders at the place where the bank or loan and trust company is located. At the time the assessment is made the officers of national banks and state and savings banks and loan and trust companies shall furnish the assessor with lists of all the stockholders and the number of shares owned by each and the assessor shall list to each stockholder under the head of corporation stock the total value of such shares. To aid the assessor in fixing the value of such shares the said corporation shall furnish him a verified statement of all the matter provided in section. thirteen hundred twenty-one of the supplement to the code 1907, which shall also show separately the amount of 'The reference is to the Code as amended April 6, 1911, Laws 34th General Assembly, p. 45,-the amendments being shown in the supplement of 1913. the capital stock and the surplus and undivided earnings, and the assessor from such statement shall fix the value of such stock based upon the capital, surplus, and undivided earnings. In arriving at the total value of the shares of stock of such corporations, the amount of their capital actually invested in real estate owned by them and in the shares of stock of corporations owning only the real estate (inclusive of leasehold interest, if any,) on or in which the bank or trust company is located, shall be deducted from the real value of such shares, and such real estate shall be assessed as other real estate, and the property of such corporation shall not be otherwise assessed. A refusal to furnish the assessor with the list of stockholders and the information required under this section shall be deemed a misdemeanor and any bank or officer thereof so refusing shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars." Sec. 1322-1a. For the purpose of placing the taxa-· tion of bank and loan and trust company stock and moneyed capital as nearly as possible upon a taxable value relatively equal to the taxable value at which other property is now actually assessed throughout the state as compared with the actual value thereof, it is hereby provided that state, savings and national bank stock and loan and trust company stock and moneyed capital shall be assessed and taxed upon the taxable value of twenty per cent. of the actual value thereof, determined as herein provided, which twenty per cent. of the actual value shall be taken and considered as the taxable value and shall be taxed as other property in such taxing district." "Sec. 1325. The corporations described in the preceding sections shall be liable for the payment of the taxes assessed to the stockholders of such corporations, and such tax shall be payable by the corporation in the same manner and under the same penalties as in case of taxes Opinion of the Court. 263 U.S. due from an individual taxpayer, and may be collected in the same manner as other taxes, or by action in the name of the county. Such corporations may recover from each stockholder his proportion of the taxes so paid, and shall have a lien on his stock and unpaid dividends therefor. If the unpaid dividends are not sufficient to pay such tax, the corporation may enforce such lien on the stock by public sale of the same, to be made by the sheriff at the principal office of such corporation in this state, after giving the stockholders thirty days' notice of the amount of such tax and the time and place of sale, such notices to be by registered letter addressed to the stockholder at his post-office address, as the same appears upon the books of the company, or is known by its secretary." Section 1321 referred to in § 1322 relates to the assessment of capital employed in private banking. For present purposes it may be described as requiring the banker to submit to the assessor a sworn statement of the assets and liabilities of his bank with a particular description of such of the assets as are exempt from taxation, and as directing an assessment based on the aggregate value of moneys and credits less deposits, of bonds and stocks less such as are otherwise taxed in the State and of the other property pertaining to the business, but omitting the real estate, which is to be specially assessed as other real estate. The section does not purport to create any exemption or to do more in that regard than possibly to imply that exemptions otherwise created are to be respected. In practice the assessing officers when assessing the capital of private banks do deduct so much thereof as is invested in tax-exempt securities of the United States, but they do this because they regard it as necessary under the tax-exempting laws of the United States. As construed by the Supreme Court of the State, the statute as a whole contemplates, and § 1322 requires, that the shares be assessed to the stockholders as their property; and as illustrating that the statute makes a clear distinction between the shares and the property of the bank, the court points to the provision which requires. that the real estate be assessed against the bank and to the succeeding provision which declares that "the property of such corporation shall not be otherwise assessed." This, without more, seems completely to refute the contention that what the statute really directs is an assessment of the bank's property instead of the stockholders' shares. The only argument advanced in support of the contention is drawn from the fact that the capital, surplus and undivided earnings of the bank are made the measure of the value of the shares (see First National Bank of Remsen v. Hayes, 186 Iowa, 892, 900), and from the fact that the bank is required primarily to pay the tax on the shares. In our opinion neither fact gives color to the contention. The value of the shares must depend chiefly on the capital, surplus and undivided earnings of the bank. These are the substantial elements and are susceptible of ready ascertainment. Other possible elements are of relatively small weight and difficult of estimation. That controlling consideration is given to the former and none to the latter may result in an under-valuation, but it does not make the assessment any the less an assessment of the shares. Besides, it hardly lies with the stockholders or the bank to object that the assessment is too low. Stanley v. Supervisors of Albany, 121 U. S. 535, 549. While the bank is required primarily to pay the tax on the shares, the statute (§ 1325) shows that the payment is to be on behalf of the stockholders and that the bank is accorded ample means of enforcing reimbursement from them. It is on the stockholders that the burden ultimately rests. This mode of collecting through the bank the tax against the stockholders has been widely nted and this court has pronounced it not inconsistent we terms of the congressional assent. National Bank v. Commonwealth, 9 Wall. 353, 361; Aberdeen Bank v. Chehalis County, 166 U. S. 440, 444; Covington v. First National Bank, 198 U. S. 100, 111-112; First National Bank of Gulfport v. Adams, supra. The next contention-that the statute subjects securities of the United States to taxation contrary to exempting laws of the United States in that it requires that the assessment be based on the aggregate of the capital, surplus and undivided earnings without any deduction or allowance on account of the investment in such securities confuses the shares, which are the property of the stockholders, with the corporate assets, which are the property of the bank. It is quite true that the States may not tax such securities, but equally true that they may tax the shares in a corporation to their owners, the stockholders, although the corporate assets consist largely of such securities, and that in assessing the shares it is not necessary to deduct what is invested in the securities. The difference turns on the distinction between the corporate assets and the shares,-the one belonging to the corporation as an artificial entity and the other to the stockholders. As respects national banks, the rule is the same as with corporations in general. The subject was extensively considered by this court in Van Allen v. The Assessors, 3 Wall. 573, which involved the power of a State to tax stockholders in national banks on their shares without making any deduction on account of tax-exempt bonds of the United States in which the capital of the banks was chiefly invested. In sustaining the power, the court said, p. 583: "The tax on the shares is not a tax on the capital of the bank. The corporation is the legal owner of all the property of the bank, real and personal; and within the powers conferred upon it by the charter, and for the pur |