28 The Financial History of Connecticut. 



Very little taxation except the tax upon the towns was imposed 

 by the state. Throughout this entire period duties were laid on writs 

 and continuances and these duties jnelded from five to seven 

 thousand dollars a year. No other sources of revenue, 

 except the state tax and the stock held by the state, yielded greater 

 returns to the state. There is evidence that the state failed to receive 

 its dues from this source.^ This loss was due to the extreme careless- 

 ness, if not graft, on the part of the justices who made out the writs 

 and received the duties. At the May session of 1813 the general 

 assembly levied on retailers of spirits a license fee of five dollars a 

 year. This tax was collected by the town clerks and paid by them 

 to the state treasurer.^ For the four years ending in April, 1818, 

 it returned to the state treasury an average of more than four thou- 

 sand dollars a year. At a later time the yield from duties and 

 licenses became relatively so small that it will not be considered ; but 

 throughout this period its importance was considerable. 



The only other form of taxation used during this period was the 

 taxing of stock held by persons not residing in Connecticut. In 1813, 

 the state first availed itself of this source of rev- 

 Non-resident gj_^^g j^Q h2.n\is, the Hartford Bank and the Union 

 Bank btock _, , ^^ ^ ' ^ , , 



Bank at New London, were chartered as early as 



May 1792,^ but the bank stock even of inhabitants of Connecticut 

 was not listed until 1805, and for eight more years non-resident 

 bank stock escaped taxation. The act passed by the legislature at 

 the May session of 1812 reached that class of stock by declaring 

 that it should be hsted at three per cent of its face value and sub- 

 jected to the same taxation as the same kind of stock owned by inhabi- 

 tants of the state. However, the non-resident stock thus set in the 

 hst was not to be considered as part of the town list and did not in- 

 crease the state tax due from the towns. The banks were directed 

 to pay the taxes on such stock and were given a lien on the stock of 

 the non-resident shareholders for the amount thus paid.* The prin- 

 ciple of taxation at source, in later years to be more widely extended, 

 is met with here for the first time in the history of Connecticut. It 

 is interesting to note that the total amount of taxes received on non- 



1 Letter to James Thomas, Esq., Comptroller. By Andrew T. Judson, 

 Attorney at Law, Canterbury, Conn. Clapp& Francis, Printers, New London, 

 1819. 



2 Conn. Laws, May 1813, chap. 12, sec. 2. 



3 Conn. Laws, Revision of 1795, pp. 40, 50. 

 * Public Acts, May 1812, chap. 13. 



