ON THE LAW OF TAXATION AS IMPOSED BY THE STATES AND THEIR MUNICIPALITIES, Notice.-A SUPPLEMENT is given at the end of this volume, being a Digest of Cases on the Law of Taxation decided from August, 1877, to January, 1883. The plan adopted arranges the cases in reference to the Chapters of the original work, and gives, near as possible, the pages which are affected by the digested cases. The number of cases digested in the Supplement is 1578. The table of these cases will be found in pages lv-lxxii, first part of this volume. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, by W. H. BURROUGHS, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. BAKER & GODWIN, PRINTERS, No 25 Park Row, N. Y. PREFACE. I HAVE endeavored in the following pages to give a summary of the principles of law involved in the system of taxation practiced by the States of the American Union, and their various subdivisions, and in the system adopted by the Government of the United States. No attempt has been made to discuss questions as to what method of taxation is best adapted to raising revenue for the support of a government. These questions are properly in the domain of writers on political economy, and in the last few years have been ably treated by Mr. DAVID A. WELLS and others.1 Most of the elementary principles involved in the law of taxation are discussed in works treating of constitutional law, the construction of statutes, and the duties and liabilities of ministerial officers. My aim has been to show the application of these principles to the subject of taxation, to state concisely the general doctrine, and then to trace the various modifications and exceptions as developed by the decided cases, so that the practitioner would not only have a summary of general principles, but a safe guide to the decided cases, on any question arising under the tax laws. In the execution of the work, the power of the State to tax, and the limitations on that power arising from its nature, and from limitations in the Constitutions of the State and of the United States, are first treated. The license tax, the taxation of corporations, and exemptions from taxation, seemed to require special chapters. Then follows the assessment and collection of the tax, including the sale of land for non-payment of taxes. Municipal taxation, or taxation by the subdivisions of a State, is treated in the same manner-first the limits on the power, and hen 1 North American Review, April, 1876, p. 357. |