lOO 



UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



selected either for bearing its burdens or from being exempt from them, is not 

 inconsistent with a perfect uniformity and equality of taxation in the proper 

 sense of those terms; and that a system which imposes the same tax upon every 

 species of property, irrespective of its nature or condition or class, will be destruc- 

 tive of the principle of uniformity and equality in taxation and of a just adapta- 

 tion of property to its burdens. 



In many states there are constitutional objections to thus classify- 

 ing intangible personal property and taxing it at a different rate from 

 other property, but in Colorado this objection does not exist, as the 

 constitution permits the classification of property for the purposes 

 of taxation. 



In any scheme for the reform of the present tax system the absence 

 of radical changes is a strong point. Changes for the betterment of 

 a financial system are rarely made by wholesale. On the contrary, 

 they come slowly, and only by small increments at a time. It is for 

 this reason that we cannot hope for the sudden abolition of the general 

 property tax and the substitution of some one of the numerous aca- 

 demic schemes for fiscal reform. The general property tax system we 



PERMANENT STATE TAX COMMISSIONS* 



• Special Report, Slate Tax Commission, Kansas, 1909, p. 55. 

 t The chairman is paid $3,000 in Alabama. 

 X The chairman is paid $s,ooo in New Jersey. 



