Upon any person engaging or continuing within this city in any public service or utility business, except railroad, railroad car, express, pipe line, telephone and telegraph companies, water carriers by steamboat or steamship and motor vehicle carriers, there is likewise hereby levied and shall be collected taxes on account of the business engaged in equal to the gross income of the business multiplied by the respective rates as follows: street and inter-urban and electric railways, 1%; water companies, 4%, except as to income from municipally owned water plants; electric light and power companies, 4% on sales and demand charges for domestic purposes and commercial lighting and 3% on sales and demand charges for all other purposes, except as to income from municipally owned plants producing or purchasing electricity and distributing the same; natural gas companies, 3% on the gross income, such gross income for this purpose to be determined by deducting from gross income from all sales to consumers the amount of the tax paid by the taxpayers under § 38.005; toll bridge companies, 3%; and upon all other public service or utility business, 2%. The measure of this tax shall not include gross income derived from commerce between this state and other states of the United States or between this city and other localities. The measure of the tax under this section shall include only gross income received from the supplying of public services. The gross income of the taxpayer from any other activity shall be included in the measure of the tax imposed upon the appropriate section or sections of this subchapter.
(Prior Code, § 711.08)