TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



17 



be unsuited to modern economic conditions. Nowhere has it been 

 found possible to administer it with any approach to justice. Even if 

 the assessment and collection could, by any yet undiscovered means, be 

 made with such exactness as to fulfill every requirement of the law, yet 

 the tax would still be unequal and ill-adjusted to the tax-paying strength 

 of the citizens. The tax systems of most of the American common- 

 wealths must be reformed." 



Again, he says: "To ascertain what is the total amount of property 

 in a State is impossible Avhen the forms which property takes are as 

 numerous and as complicated as at present. Under modern economic 

 conditions the general property tax is fundamentally wrong in principle. 

 At the present time property is not a fair indication of ability to con- 

 tribute to the support of the Government." 



In Wisconsin there is a tax commission appointed by the Governor 

 and holding office for ten years. This commission prepared a bill, 

 which was passed by the Legislature in May last, which substitutes an 

 ad valorem tax on all railroads operating in the State for the license 

 tax now required, and which the commission believes will provide all 

 necessary State revenue without further State tax. The tax commis- 

 sion, which is also a State board of assessment, will, in ways prescribed 

 by the Act, ascertain and determine the amount and cash value of all 

 taxable property in the State, also the amount necessary to pay all 

 State, county, and local expenses. The board will then calculate and 

 determine the necessary assessment on all the property of the State, 

 to pay this indebtedness and expense. This will be the tax rate on the 

 property of all railroad companies, who will pay the same into the 

 State treasury for State purposes, and this exempts the railroads from 

 all further county or township assessments, except assessments for local 

 improvements. The taxation on all other corporations (insurance, 

 telegraph, telephone, electric light, etc.) stands as it was — mostly a 

 license tax based on incomes. 



Since the appointment of the Wisconsin tax commission in 1899, it 

 has made two annual reports, which are valuable literary and educa- 

 tional contributions to the science of taxation, particularly in refer- 

 ence to corporate taxation. In 1901, the Wisconsin tax commission 

 made its first annual report, in which it does some interesting figuring. 

 Letters of inquiry were sent to about six thousand representative farm- 

 ers of the State. These letters desired information relative to the pro- 

 portion of expense to gross income, per cent paid in taxes to gross 

 income, what relation personal property (including implements and 

 live stock) bears to total assessment, and the farmer's opinion of the 

 ratio of the assessed value of his farm to the true value of the same. 

 To this last question, 1,124 replied 38 per cent; to a similar inquiry 



2 — F-GC 



