782 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



autlioritj. In the case of the securities of home companies they 

 may be readily taxed at the source, but in the case of foreign cor- 

 j)orations it is only by methods almost revolting in their injustice 

 and treatment of the taxj^ayer that even a partial success can be 

 secured. The dependence upon the sworn statement or declara- 

 tion of the taxpayer is known to be extremely faulty and to offer a 

 premium on untruthfulness. So long as this dependence is retained 

 in whole or in part in a system for taxing personal property, the 

 results must be unsatisfactory. The most judicious, even if it seems 

 the most radical, remedy is to abandon the taxation of securities. 

 Certainly it would be well to put an end to the Massachusetts plan 

 of taxing securities representing property outside of the State, for 

 that involves double taxation wherever it has been possible to im- 

 pose the tax. What can be reached only by methods at all times 

 trying and difficult, and sometimes very demoralizing, should not 

 be permitted to remain a permanent feature of the revenue system 

 of a State. 



The New York commission of 1870 proposed to limit the State 

 taxes to a very few number of objects. That they be " levied on 

 a comparatively broad basis — like real estate — Avith certainty, pro- 

 portionality, and uniformity on a few items of property, like the 

 franchises of all moneyed corporations enjoying the same privileges 

 within the State, and on fixed and unvarying signs of property, like 

 rental values of buildings " — such was the scheme proposed. The 

 leading object to be attained was equality of burdens, and a second 

 object of quite as great importance, was simplicity in assessment and 

 collection. Granting that real estate, lands, and buildings were 

 taxed on a full and fair market valuation, and that corporations con- 

 tributed their share toward the expenses of the State, it remained to 

 devise a tax that should reach all other forms of property that could 

 be properly and easily assessed. This tax was to be known as the 

 " building-occupancy " tax, and was to be levied on an additional 

 assessment of a sum equal to three times the annual rent or rental 

 value of all the buildings on the land.* Nearly thirty years later 



* The New York commission of 1870 submitted two propositions on this point: 



1. Tax the house or building as real estate separately, at the same rate of valuation as 

 the land — that is, fifty per cent — and then assuming that the value of the house or build- 

 ing, irrespective of its contents, be such contents furniture, machinery, or any other chattels 

 whatsoever, is the sign or index which the owner or occui)ier puts out of his personal prop- 

 erty, tax the house or building on a valuation of fifty per cent additional to its real estate 

 valuation, as the representative value of such personal property ; or, in other words, tax the 

 land separately on fifty per cent of its fair marketable valuation, and tax the building apart 

 from the land, as representing the owner's personal pro])erty, on a full valuation, as indi- 

 cated by the rent actually paid for it or its estimated rental value. Or — 



2. Tax buildings conjointly with land as real estate at a uniform valuation; and then as 

 the equivalent for all taxation on personal property, tax the occupier, be he owner or tenant 



