354 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 



By DAVID A. WELLS, LL.D., D.C.L., 



CORRESPONDANT DE L'lNSTITUT DE FRANCE, ETC. 



XIV. DOUBLE TAXATION". 



ONE of the inevitable characteristics of a " general property tax " 

 is the opportunity afforded for inflicting double taxation — i. e., 

 taxation at one and the same time on the same person or property, 

 or taxation of the same property a second time in the same year — an 

 opportunity which the believers in this system vigorously defend, 

 and its administrators as a rule gladly take advantage of to prac- 

 tically enforce. These opportunities exist mainly through two 

 assumptions, neither of which are warranted by either reason or jus- 

 tice, and are alike antagonistic to any equitable and intelligent system 

 of taxation : the first, in respect to the situs of personal property, and 

 the second, as to origin and nature of property; and to these, in the 

 above order, attention is next invited. 



Personal property for purposes of taxation is popularly divided 

 into two classes — namely, things movable, tangible, and visible, and 

 things wanting in corporality or bodily presence, and therefore, as 

 a rule, intangible and invisible. To the former has been given the 

 general name of " chattels," and to the latter that of " credits " ; 

 under which latter name or title are included not only book ac- 

 counts, bills payable, promissory notes, bonds, mortgages, deeds, 

 bank deposits, certificates of indebtedness, and the like, but also 

 shares of corporate stock, and possibly shares in any partnership. 

 Adopting a popular theory, that credits are property, their aggre- 

 gate value in all civilized countries can not, probably, be reasonably 

 estimated at less than one half of the aggregate value of all chattels 

 and real estate. 



Situs of Personal Property. — As has been already pointed 

 out, it is in the nature of an economic axiom and a fundamental legal 

 principle that the power of every state to tax must be exclusively 

 limited to subjects within its territory and legal jurisdiction. This 

 economic axiom and legal principle is recognized in nearly all coun- 

 tries claiming to be civilized; the principal exceptions being in the 

 States of the Federal Union, where it is violated in respect to both 

 theory and practice — more especially in the State of Massachusetts, 

 the statutes of which define personal estate for purposes of taxation 

 so as to include " goods, chattels, money, and effects, wherever they 

 are; ships, public stocks and securities, stocks in turnpikes, bridges, 

 and moneyed corporations, within or without the State." Thus, for 



