Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/477

Rh savings-banks. Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania tax collateral inheritances. In New Hampshire the courts recently declared a law of this kind unconstitutional. Nine States derive part of their revenue from a tax on the liquor-traffic. Eight secure a considerable amount from licenses granted to trades and occupations by the State, instead of by the local authorities, as is the custom in most sections. A few of the oddities of taxation by States may be referred to here. Maryland last year obtained $110,050 from a tax on the commissions of executors and administrators of estates, one tenth part of the sum allowed them by the Orphans' Court being demanded by the State. North Carolina derived $63,000, in 1884, from a license of $100 on drummers. The declaration of the Ohio Supreme Court, last autumn, that the Scott liquor law was unconstitutional, has deprived the State of an annual revenue of over $50,000, and the cities within its borders of half a million. Pennsylvania and Virginia have income-taxes. Georgia gets $300,000 per annum as the rental of the Atlanta and West Point Railroad, and Illinois has seven percentum of the gross earnings of the Illinois Central Railroad, between $350,000 and 8400,000 a year, as a charter tax. In South Carolina seventeen companies paid a royalty, for the use of the phosphate-beds, of $154,318, which is about one quarter of the amount raised for State purposes. The occupation tax in Texas covers a very extensive list of trades and occupations. The total receipts of the treasury in 1884 were $1,539,918, and of this sum the occupation-taxes furnished $774,756. In Massachusetts there is a law for the taxation of corporations. The levy is made by the State; but the amount paid in is redistributed by the Stale to the cities and towns where the stockholders reside, and only so much thereof as is from non-residents remains in the State Treasury. Pennsylvania, by some strange process of reasoning, thinks that a man who owns a watch should pay a tax for the privilege. As only 45,590 watches are reported by a population of 4,500,000, the inference is, that the Quakers either conceal their time-pieces in an inner pocket, or regulate their lives by the town-clock or the sun,

A glance at the laws of a few States which have secured the most notable results in the direction of special taxation will show the scope and bearing of the movement. Pennsylvania may, perhaps, be called the pioneer. It has tried more experiments and probably reaches more special classes than any other State. The tax on the capital stock of all corporations, which yielded to the State $1,535,727.50 in 1884, is one half mill for each one per centum of dividend declared, provided the annual dividend amounts to six per centum or more. If the dividends are less than six per centum, or if there are no dividends, the tax is three mills upon each dollar of the appraised valuation, or market value, of the stock. A further tax of eight tenths of one per centum is imposed on the gross earnings of transportation and telegraph companies. This brought in last year $787,929.20. Insurance