before they can do this they must register and swear that they have paid all taxes since 1877, and hence the tax is a constant incentive to perjury. The pernicious effect of such a system hardly needs any comment. About 60 per cent of the tax is generally collected. The census of 1890 showed a voting population of 398,122 and the yield of the tax in 1898 was $234,431.99. The proceeds are used "for educational purposes in instructing children in the elementary branches of an English education only."

CHAPTER XI

THE GENERAL PROPERTY TAX

39. The Conclusions of the New York Tax Commission of 1871 and 1872. The chief financial resource of American states has for a long time been a general tax upon all property1 within the reach of the taxing power. This general property tax, as it is called, has never worked satisfactorily, and its shortcomings have led to the appointment of numerous tax commissions 2 to investigate the problem of state and local taxation. The reports of some of the more important of these commissions are valuable sources of information concerning the workings of the general property tax. Our first selection is from the Second Report of the Commissioners appointed to revise the Laws for the Assessment and Collection of Taxes in New York (1871 and 1872):

The property of New York, made subject to taxation, divides itself into two classes, real and personal.

Real Property, embracing, according to the usual acceptance of the term, lands and buildings, being visible and tangible, presents no inherent difficulty in the way of ascertainment, valuation, and assessment. The New York system of taxation in respect to these objects might, therefore, be reasonably supposed to work with some degree of uniformity and equality; but so far from this being the case, it would be difficult, nay, probably impossible, to find any two contiguous towns, cities,

1 Certain exemptions are granted, however, to property used for religious, benevolent, or charitable purposes.

2 The work of such commissions is described by J. W. Chapman, State Tax Commissions (Baltimore, 1897).

The Commissioners were David A. Wells, Edwin Dodge, and George W. Cuyler.

or counties in the state, in which the valuation of such property approximates in any degree to uniformity. So far as the commissioners can ascertain, the average aggregate valuation varies from 20 per cent of actual value as a mininum, to 50 per cent as a maximum; with a probable total average for the whole state of a rate not in excess of 40 per cent. The lowest valuations, furthermore, do not, as might be supposed, occur in the poorest and most sparsely settled counties of the state, but rather in the richest and most densely populated; and it is also curious to note, that comparing the real estate valuations of the several counties of the state in the years 1860 and 1870, with the census returns of their population at the same periods, it will be found that some counties which have increased their population and railroad facilities, have decreased their valuations, while other counties, which have actually diminished in population, have increased their valuations.

The increase in the assessed valuation of the real property of the entire state for the ten years, from 1861 to 1870 inclusive, was 47 per cent; but deducting the valuations of New York and Kings counties, the increase was only 8 per cent, although the increase in the population of these two sections, during the same period, was not very unequal; the increase in New York and Kings counties having been 269,722, and for the remainder of the state, 232,301. Now as the law of the state is clear and explicit, that the valuations shall be uniform, it is evident that the law in this respect has become a dead letter and wholly inoperative.1

1 In their First Report, submitted in 1871, the Commissioners give the following account of the methods of assessing real estate:

"In New York the state tax is apportioned among the counties on the basis of their respective valuations of real estate, and the same rule prevails among the towns of the different counties. Hence arises the double competition between the assessors of counties in the aggregate, and of the towns in each county, for the lowest possible valuation. Having completed his official labors, each assessor in the state subscribes an oath, of which the following is the material portion:

"We do severally depose and swear that we have set down in the foregoing assessment-roll all the real estate in, according to our best information, . . . and that we have have estimated the value of said real estate at the sums which a majority of the assessors have decided to be the full and true value thereof, and at which they would appraise the same in payment of a just debt due from a solvent debtor?

"And the law further provides 'that every assessor who shall willfully swear false in taking and subscribing said oath, shall be guilty of and liable to the penalties of will

But if such be the inequality and illegality of the methods of taxing real property at present followed in the state of New York, the results which have attended the attempts to tax personal property under the same system are infinitely more farcical and disgraceful. The evidence of this failure is most conclusive, and the reasons why, under the existing system, nothing but failure in respect to the taxing of this description of property can be anticipated, are of a character that admit of being readily understood and verified. Thus the total equalized valuation of all the property of the state of New York for the year 187172 is $2,076,454,000, of which but little more than one fifth (21.48 per cent), or $445,918,000, was returned under the head of personal property.

In their previous report the commissioners presented evidence tending to show that the aggregate value of the real property of the state and the aggregate value of its personal property closely approximated. They furthermore presented a schedule of property of the class personal within the state, founded on exact data, or careful estimate, whose aggregate amount nearly equaled in value the entire amount of all the property of the state, real and personal, returned for taxation during the year 1870-71. They would also recall the opinion authoritatively expressed in the constitutional convention of 1868, that 30 citizens of the state could be named whose aggregate wealth (mainly personal) was very considerably in excess of the valuation for that year of all the personal property of the entire state. But without again entering into details, the commissioners would now say, that another year's experience has led them to this general conclusion, that the authorities of the state, under a law

ful and corrupt perjury.' Let us now see what are the acknowledged facts in respect to the valuation of real property in New York, and some of the other states, where a substantially like oath is made imperative.

"In some instances in New York the valuation of real estate for taxation is reported as low as 20 per cent of its real value. In a majority of cases in the country the rate varies from 25 to 35 per cent, and rises in the cities to 50 and possibly 60 per cent as a maximum. In short, there cannot probably be found a single instance in the whole state, unless possibly in the case of certain unoccupied lands, the property of nonresidents, where the law as respects the valuation of real property is fully complied with, and where the oaths of the assessors are not wholly inconsistent with the exact truth."

(professedly executed) requiring the assessment of all personal property at its full value, do not in fact succeed in assessing a proportion equal to 30 per cent of the recognized low valuation. of the real estate; or more than 15 per cent of the real and true value of all such property immediately located within the state, and as such subject to the state authority. So much in proof of the evidence of the failure of the existing laws relative to local taxation to do what they were designed and purport to do. So much also in evidence that the existing system of local taxation, by its own gravitation and surrounding influences, has, with the exception of incorporated capital, practically come down to a tax upon real estate.

The reasons why nothing but failure in respect to the valuation and assessment of personal property under the existing system can be anticipated are in the main as follows:

In the first place, much of the property termed "personal,' and which under the system operative in New York and most of the other states it is made obligatory on the assessors to value and assess, is incorporeal and invisible, easy of transfer and concealment, not admitting of valuation by comparison with any common standard, and the situs or locality of which, for purposes of assessment and taxation, involves some of the oldest, most controverted, and yet unsettled questions of law. Of such a character are all negotiable instruments, i.e., national, state, municipal, and corporate bonds; written obligations of indebtedness on the part of individuals; book accounts, annuities, money at interest, cash on hand, and the like, the whole constituting by far the largest proportion of the so-called personal property of the country.

It is obvious, therefore, that the law contemplates the doing of an act; namely, the valuing and assessing of that which is invisible and incorporeal, which cannot be done without the fullest coöperation, through communication of information, of the taxpayer himself; and yet for the imparting of which the two most powerful influences that can control human action, namely, love of gain, and the desire to avoid publicity in respect to one's private affairs, coöperate to oppose.

And in the case also of much of the so-called "personal property" that is visible and tangible, as furniture, books, works