COLUMBUS, Ohio — The state’s practice of lowering tax rates for banks that do more business in Ohio doesn’t violate the U.S. Constitution, the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday.
The ruling preserves a 13-year-old tax that brought more than $228 million into state coffers last fiscal year and is designed to encourage banks to expand their activity in Ohio.
In the case, Dollar Bank, a Pittsburgh-based lender with 30 branches in Ohio, argued the state’s financial-institutions tax discriminates against out-of-state banks by taxing their in-state equity capital at lower rates once it exceeds certain amounts…