48 BOARD OF AGRICLLTLTRE. 



This difTerence would not only be a serious discrimination against 

 the citizen but would, and does, encourage further evasions and 

 frauds, and particularly the loaning of money, in the names of non- 

 residents, to escape taxation. It also presents an inducement to 

 citizens whose investments do not require personal attention to reside 

 abroad ; any saving of the tax beiug equivalent to an addition to 

 their income. 



Again, to the tax-payer whose capital is invested in trade it 

 works perliaps the greatest inequalit3'. His stock is open to the 

 inspection of the assessors, who may, and who by law are bound to 

 assess it at its value ; while his neighbor, who has his surplus in 

 securities, avoids in whole, or in part, an}' assessment upon it. 



In fact, the natural and inevitable result of such discrimination, 

 or iuequalitv, has led assessors — and I am pursuaded it is a rule 

 very generall}* adopted for assessment purposes, to place a value 

 upon all property which cannot be hidden from taxation, far below 

 its real value, to offset in some measure, the unjust discriminations 

 just referred to. 



These are ol)jections which every one feels and appreciates ; others 

 which are more obscure need not be mentioned. A tax on land is 

 not open to these objections. Whenever the law seeks to tax land 

 and personalt\', with equalit}', the general result is that land pays 

 much the greater proportion of the tax. No inquisitorial proceed- 

 ings are required to discover it, and no frauds or evasions can con- 

 ceal it from view. 



These, and other reasons, have led some political economists to 

 advocate the omission of personalt}' from the customary- taxation 

 by value, and the raising of the ordinary State and municipal tax by 

 a tax laid exclusively on land and a few other subjects which, like 

 land, are open to constant public observation and inspection, and in 

 respect to which neither would harsh sifting processes be required, 

 nor evasions be practicable, nor frauds invited. 



Such a tax, it is claimed, while nominally falling upon a few, 

 would in fact be diffused through the whole communit}-, and col- 

 lected from all, in the nature of results, and added to the price of 

 what is produced and distributed by the classes taxed, just as any 

 tax upon any common article of consumption is paid in the end by 

 the consumer, and is no more burdensome to the dealer, who nomi- 

 nally pays it, than it is to an}' other member of the community of 



