Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/478

464 companies are assessed eight tenths of one per centum on gross premiums, and bank-stocks, mortgages, and loans of different kinds pay four per centum on every dollar of the value thereof. These special classes paid $954,843.59 in 1884. Collateral inheritances of over $200 are taxed three mills on every dollar. From this source $461,465.48 were derived. Tavern-licenses amounted to $426,429.19, and retailers' licenses to $301,393.42. Nothing illustrates better how effectively this system of special taxation can be applied than the fact that while the total receipts of the Pennsylvania State Treasury in 1884 were $6,226,959.38, only $502,025.43 were raised by a direct general tax. New York State, which is first in wealth and the amount of revenue collected, has not pushed the system to such an extent, although it is rapidly following in the course of its neighbor. The tax on the capital stock of corporations is only one half of that levied in Pennsylvania, namely, one quarter of a mill for each one per centum of dividends if the dividends equal or exceed six per centum, and one and one half mill upon each dollar of a valuation of the capital stock when they are under six per centum or nil. The tax on the gross earnings of transportation, navigation, telegraph, and telephone companies is one half per centum. This yielded in 1884 $1,603,612.75, insurance companies paying on their capital and premiums $241,676.15 of the amount. In Wisconsin, where special taxes have also worked well, the plan is somewhat different. The license-tax, as it is called there, applies to railroads, insurance, telegraph, and telephone companies. Railroads are taxed from five dollars per mile of operated road to four per centum of gross earnings, as follows: If the road earns less than $1,500 per mile, it is taxed five dollars per mile; on those earning more than $1,500 and less than $3,000 per mile, the tax is five dollars per mile, and two per centum on the excess over $1,500 per mile; on those earning $3,000 or more per mile, the tax is four per centum on gross earnings. Telegraph companies pay one dollar per mile for the first wire, fifty cents per mile for the second, twenty-five cents per mile for the third, and twenty cents per mile for the fourth and all additional. Telephone companies pay one per centum on gross receipts, and insurance companies two per centum on gross earnings. This tax or license is in lieu of all other taxes, and amounted in 1884 to: Railroads, $754,269.44; telegraph, $4,568.85; telephone, $1,169.26; insurance, $64,904.75; or a total of $824,912.30. Vermont, which pays nearly its entire expenses out of the special taxes, has a law somewhat similar to that of Wisconsin. It levies two per centum on railroads on the first $2,000 of earnings per mile. The rate increases one per centum for each additional $1,000 per mile up to $5,000, and on all earnings over $5,000 per mile it is five per centum. Insurance companies pay two per centum on gross premiums, and life-insurance companies in addition one per centum on all surplus over the necessary reserve computed at four per centum on existing policies.