772 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



about one third of the national debt, and has been mainly in- 

 curred for municipal and urban improvements, such as water and 

 gas supply, markets, tramways, parks, libraries, public baths, 

 wash houses, drainage, and other improvements. The purposes 

 for which the proceeds of local taxes are expended in the United 

 Kingdom are mainly for poor relief, gas and water supply, schools, 

 police, asylums, etc. In a report made to the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science in 1870 by Mr. Stanley Jevons, 

 it was stated that the methods by which the local taxes of the 

 kingdom were then levied were substantially according to an act 

 passed in the reign of Elizabeth. 



POPULAR THEORY OF TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

 STATED AND EXAMINED. The general idea which constitutes the 

 basis of the system of State or local taxation mainly recognized 

 in the United States (though not in other countries), and gener- 

 erally known and designated as "the general property tax" is 

 founded on the assumption that, in order to tax equitably, it is 

 necessary to tax everything ; the term everything being at the 

 same time used in a sense so indefinite as to embrace not merely 

 things in the nature of physical actualities other than persons, 

 but also persons, incomes, rights, representatives of property, 

 titles, trusts, conclusions of law, debts, and in short any act of 

 assessing capable of resulting in the obtaining of revenue. As a 

 logical consequence of this idea, the exemption of anything from 

 taxation is furthermore held to be not only impolitic, but unjust, 

 and if made necessary by circumstances, as something to be 

 regretted. 



The general property tax for general State purposes exists in 

 all but four of the States of the Federal Union Delaware, New 

 Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In Delaware there has 

 been no property tax since 1877, as its expenses are defrayed 

 mainly by licenses and taxes on railroads. In New Jersey there 

 is only a school tax on property, but no property tax for general 

 State purposes. In Pennsylvania the State tax is levied only on 

 personal property. In Wisconsin the so-called State tax is levied 

 only to defray the interest on the debt, and for the purpose of con- 

 tributing to the university (one eighth mill tax), schools (one mill 

 tax), and expenditures on account of the insane. But there is no 

 property tax for general purposes. In addition to these four cases 

 a property tax is levied in Vermont only in case the corporation 

 taxes do not suffice to pay the entire expenses of the State (Selig- 

 man, Financial Statistics of the American Commonwealths, 1889).* 



* The statutes of Massachusetts enacted for making this system of taxation effective, 

 and which have been substantially adopted by most of the States of the Federal Union, 

 thus specify the objects, persons, and property that shall be subject to taxation : 



