1. TAXATION: Insurance Company: Deductions. A domestic insurance company is taxable on its cash and uncollected premiums outside of this State, and on its real estate within or without the State, but is not taxable on its net reserve; and if such cash and uncollected premiums are included in its assets, and after the real estate and the reserve and other liabilities are deducted from the gross assets, its remaining assets are nothing at all, it is taxable only on its real estate.
2. ____: ____: Tax Return: Evidence of Omitted Assets. The statute gives to a board of equalization power to compel the production of books and papers of a domestic corporation and to compel the attendance of witnesses, and to assess property of the corporation omitted from the assessor's book, and when suit is brought to quash its record assessing the company's property for taxation, the board is entitled to show that the corporation had taxable assets in addition to those listed in its tax return; but if the board makes no such showing, the return will, upon certiorari, be taken as true, and if it shows no assets legally taxable, the assessment will be quashed.
Corpus Juris-Cyc. References: Taxation, 37 Cyc., p. 805, n. 72; p. 1089, n. 52.
WHITE, J.
The relator brings this proceeding to quash the record of the Board of Equalization of the City of St. Louis assessing its property for taxation.
The amended return for taxes of June 1, 1925, shows total assets of all descriptions amounting to $1,185,439.44.
Of this, $451,120 consists of real estate in Missouri, and $3200 in real estate outside of Missouri, on which taxes were paid. Other deductions, including $386,919.43 reserve, show that the remaining taxable assets of the relator are $296,914.01 less than nothing. Notwithstanding that return the Board of Equalization fixed its assessment at $75,000.
Among the deductions is $1000 in each outside of Missouri and premiums uncollected outside of Missouri $220,919.43, which are properly taxable in this State, as decided in State ex rel. American Automobile Insurance Company v. Gehner, 320 Mo. 702. This would not make enough to balance the deficit. The return, therefore, does not show on its face that relator had taxable assets, besides real estate, equal to the amount assessed to it. The statute gives the County Board of Equalization power to compel the production of books and papers, and to compel the attendance of witnesses. It may assess property omitted from the assessor's book. It therefore has power to show if relator had taxable assets in addition to those listed in the return. It made no such showing. Therefore the assessment is quashed. All concur, except Walker, C.J., and Blair, J., absent.