Fire and marine insurance companies were subject until 1882 to a state annual occupation tax of $200 and to a county tax of $10. In 1882 guaranty, accident, health, and livestock insurance companies were added to the taxable list, and the state tax was made the same as that on fire and marine companies, though the county tax was made $7 for all companies, including fire and marine.

1 Laws of 1907, p. 482. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. T. B. Love, 101 Tex., 444 (1908). Report of the Attorney General, 1906-8, p. 44. Kansas City Life Ins. Co. v. Love, 101 Tex., 531 (1908) refers to a temporary exemption to companies which had to deposit in their home state securities covering their entire reserve.

2 Laws of 1909, p. 192. Rev. Civil Stats., 1911, arts. 4764, 4825.

3 Laws of 1909, p. 264. Rev. Civil Stats., 1911, art. 4779.

4 Message of Governor Ferguson, April 29, 1915; House Journal, 34th Leg., First Called Sess., p. 7.

These rates remained unchanged until 1893, when a tax of one-half of 1% upon gross premium receipts within the state was enacted to apply to all insurance companies. In 1895 occupation taxes of $50 on general agents and $7 on local agents were enacted. In 1897 the rate on fire insurance companies was left at one-half of 1%, while that on others was increased to 1%. In 1905 the tax on the gross receipts of surety and guaranty companies was increased to 2%; on the gross receipts of fire and other insurance companies, 1 3/4%.1 The rate applicable to these insurance companies was subject to reduction as in the case of the life companies, according to the proportion of assets invested in Texas real estate and securities. The legislation of 1907 which required at least 75% of the reserve on Texas policies to be invested in Texas was applicable only to life companies. In 1907, however, the gross receipts tax on all companies other than life was increased to a flat rate of 2%. In 1911 it was increased to 2 6/10%, subject to reduction to 1% if the company invested as much as one-fourth of its entire assets in Texas real estate or other legal investments, and to one-half of 1% if as much as one-half of the entire assets should be invested.2 Purely co-operative or mutual fire insurance companies were not made taxable, and no distinction was made between domestic and foreign companies, as was made in the case of life companies. In 1909 a Fire Rating Board was established with the power to regulate the rates of fire insurance. It was provided that the expenses of the board should be, assessed upon the companies in the proportion which the gross premium receipts of each bore to the aggregate of premium receipts. Though the assessment is called a tax, it is not technically a tax.3

The taxes on insurance companies have always been the most productive of all the special occupation taxes, except the gross passenger earnings tax in its early days. In 1881 insurance companies paid $13,466 or 44 per cent of the total received by the state from special occupation taxes; in 1891, $33,716, or 34.6 per cent; in 1895, $63,783, or 47.6 per cent; in 1900, $115,455, or 56.4 per cent; in 1905, $204,422, or 53.5. per cent; in 1910, $364,825, or 47.3 per cent; in 1915, $486,371, or 45.3 per cent.

1 Fire Assn. of Phila, v. Love, 101 Tex., 376 (1908).

2 General Laws, 1911, p. 216.

3 See Firemen's Fund Ins. Co. v. Von Rosenberg, 103 Tex., 571 (1910).