TAXATION. g3 



would not be secured by furnishing to local assessors the means 

 of taxing all deposits by one individual above $500, whether these 

 deposits be in one or several banks. 



By exempting $500, it is claimed, the original design of favor to 

 those in limited circumstances would be preserved, while the large 

 deposits, where such exist, would bear the assessments they have 

 been seeking to escape, or be driven from the banks, leaving them, 

 according to the original intention, for small deposits. It is also 

 urged that the revenue from the State assessment on deposits is 

 of an unstable and uncertain character. In 1872, the tax was one- 

 half of one per cent., in ISTt it was increased to one per cent., but 

 it is now proposed by the Bank Examiner to reduce the rate to 

 three-fourths of one per cent. What changes are in store for the 

 rate in the future cannot now be foretold. It may be increased to 

 two per cent., and may be entirely remitted. 



When these deposits above a fixed sum are open to assessors 

 for taxation, they will then bear this burden in the different towns 

 and cities in the same proportion as other forms of property, and 

 thus satisfy the very just demand for equal taxation, and furnish 

 to different localities the precise revenue from this source, to 

 which they are entitled. 



This result could be practically secured by enactment requiring 

 the officers of savings banks to make returns to local assessors of 

 the names of depositors in the different towns and cities of the 

 State and the amount of their deposits. On the other hand, it is 

 claimed that the plan of municipal taxation of these deposits 

 would devolve a vast amount of labor upon the bank officers, that 

 from the variable rate of taxation in different towns that tax 

 would be inequitable, that the system would inevitably be brought 

 into confusion, in a word, that the whole scheme is impracticable, 

 whereas the plan of State assessment is simple, the money easily 

 collected, and the revenue from it vastly greater than would be 

 derived by the other method were an exetnption allowed, inas- 

 much as such exemption would cover the greater part of the sum 

 invested in these banks by most of the depositors. It is also 

 claimed that by devoting this revenue to the public schools, and 

 to an allowance on the State tax, the poorer towns having no 

 deposits in savings banks receive the benefit of a portion of this 

 tax at the expense of their more prosperous neighbors. The 

 arguments on both sides are pointed and forceful, and the two 

 plans by widely different methods are far reaching in their results. 



