In the 1933 case Lee, Comptroller v. Bickell et al., the United States Supreme Court dealt with a dispute over inheritance tax. The appellants were executors of an estate who had paid an inheritance tax under protest and then sued to recover it on constitutional grounds. They argued that the statute imposing such taxes violated both due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment because it exempted certain classes of property from taxation while taxing others at varying rates depending upon their nature or disposition by will or intestacy. However, the court ruled against them stating that there was no violation in either respect as long as there is reasonable basis for classification which has been made by legislature in imposing different rates for different types/classes of properties.

In the dissenting opinion for Lee v. Bickell, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a Maryland law taxing stock dividends as income violated both due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. The dissenting justices contended that this tax unfairly targeted shareholders by treating their dividends differently from other forms of income, such as wages or interest on bonds. They also disagreed with the majority's interpretation of "income," arguing that it should be defined more broadly to include all gains derived from capital, labor, or both combined - not just profits distributed to shareholders in form of dividends. Furthermore, they believed that this selective taxation could discourage investment and harm economic growth by penalizing successful corporations and their investors.