L. 1916, ch. 400. Final report of codification commission. § 1. *§ 18. Whenever in this chapter a citation, order, notice or paper is directed to be deposited in the "post-office" or in a "specified post-office,' such deposit may be made or directed to be made in any post-office, branch post-office, sub-station or letter box maintained and exclusively controlled by the United States government. (Amended by L. 1916, ch. 447, in effect May 29, 1916.) L. 1916, ch. 400.-An act to extend the time for making the final report of the commissioners designated to consolidate, codify and revise the laws relating to the estates of deceased persons and the procedure and practice in surrogates' courts. (In effect May 2, 1916.) § 1. The time for making the final report to the legislature of the commissioners designated by chapter five hundred and thirty of the laws of nineteen hundred and fourteen, to consolidate, codify and revise the laws relating to the estates of deceased persons and the procedure and practice in surrogates' courts, as extended by chapter four hundred and fifty-one of the laws of nineteen hundred and fifteen, is hereby further extended until February fifteenth, nineteen hundred and seventeen. SYPHON. Defined; General Business L., § 360-a. *So in original. § 2. Definitions. L. 1916, ch. 323. TAX LAW. (L. 1909, ch. 62.) § 2. Definitions.-1. "Tax commission" as used in this chapter means the state tax commission and "tax department" means the state tax department. 2. "Comptroller" as used in this chapter means the state comptroller. 3. "Assessor" as used in this chapter shall be deemed to include any elected or appointed officer of any civil or political subdivision of the state, charged by law with the duty of assessing property for taxation for state, county or local purposes. 4. "Tax district" as used in this chapter, means unless otherwise herein provided a city or town of this state. 5. "County treasurer" includes any officer performing the duties devolving upon such office under whatever name. 6. The terms "land," "real estate," and "real property," as used in this chapter, include the land itself above and under water, all buildings and other articles and structures, substructures and superstructures, erected upon, under or above, or affixed to the same; all wharves and piers, including the value of the right to collect wharfage, cranage or dockage thereon; all bridges, all telegraph lines, wires, poles and appurtenances; all supports and inclosures for electrical conductors and other appurtenances upon, above and underground; all surface, underground or elevated railroads, including the value of all franchises, rights or permission to construct, maintain or operate the same in, under, above, on or through, streets, highways or public places; all railroad structures, substructures and superstructures, tracks and the iron thereon; branches, switches and other fixtures permitted or authorized to be made, laid or placed in, upon, above or under any public or private road, street or ground; all mains, pipes and tanks laid or placed in, upon, above or under any public or private street or place for conducting steam, heat, water, oil, electricity or any property, substance or product capable of transportation or conveyance therein or that is protected thereby, including the value of all franchises, rights, authority or permission to construct, maintain or operate, in, under, above, upon, or through, any streets, highways or public places, any mains, pipes, tanks, conduits or wires, with their appurtenances, for conducting water, steam, heat, light, power, gas, oil or other substance, or electricity for telegraphic, telephonic or other purposes; all trees and underwood growing upon land, and all mines, minerals, quarries and fossils in and under the same, except mines belonging to the state. A franchise, right, authority or permission specified in this subdivision shall for the purpose of taxation be known as a "special franchise." A special franchise shall be deemed to include the value of the tangible property of a person, copartnership, association or corporation situated in, upon, under L. 1916, ch. 323. Definitions. § 2. or above any street, highway, public place or public waters in connection with the special franchise. The tangible property so included shall be taxed as a part of the special franchise. No property of a municipal corporation shall be subject to a special franchise tax. 7. The term "special franchise" shall not be deemed to include the crossing of a street, highway or public place outside the limits of a city or incorporated village where such crossing is less than two hundred and fifty feet in length, unless such crossing be the continuation of an occupancy of another street, highway or public place. This subdivision shall not apply to any elevated railroad. 8. The terms "personal estate," and "personal property," as used in this chapter, include chattels, money, things in action, debts due from solvent debtors, whether on account, contract, note, bond or mortgage; debts and obligations for the payment of money due or owing to persons residing within this state, however secured or wherever such securities shall be held; debts due by inhabitants of this state to persons not residing within the United States for the purchase of any real estate; public stocks, stocks in moneyed corporations, and such portion of the capital of incorporated companies, liable to taxation on their capital, as shall not be invested in real estate. (Amended by L. 1916, ch. 323, in effect Apr. 26, 1916.) Telephone line is taxable real property. New York Telephone Co. v. State (1915), 169 App. Div. 310, 321, 154 N. Y. Supp. 1059. A special franchise involves a grant from competent public authority, and there can be no franchise if an act is done within the boundaries of a street "by virtue of the ownership of the soil or of some interest therein." Hence, where a railroad company, after a city opens a street and builds a bridge over its tracks acquiring a mere easement for street purposes, acquires additional lands adjacent to its original right of way, and uses it for switch tracks underneath the bridge, it should not be assessed as a special franchise. So, also, additional lands acquired by a railroad company across streets laid out subsequent and adjacent to its right of way, upon which no structures have been erected, are not assessable as a special franchise. People ex rel. N. Y. Cent. & H. R. R. R. Co. v. Woodbury (1915), 167 App. Div. 428, 153 N. Y. Supp. 537. Canal lands owned by the State are a public place, within the meaning of subdivision 3 of this section of the Tax Law, and hence the crossing of said lands by the tracks of a railroad company is a special franchise and taxable as such. People ex rel. N. Y. Cent. & H. R. R. R. Co. v. Woodbury (1915), 167 App. Div. 535, 153 N. Y. Supp. 541. Occupancy of streets for private siding or switch track granted to an industrial company for private purposes only, is not subject to taxation as a special franchise against either the railroad or the industrial company. Atty. Genl. Opin. (1915), 4 State Dep. Rep. 533. Tangible property included in a special franchise should be valued at the cost of reproduction less depreciation. People ex rel. N. Y. Cent. & H. R. R. R. Co. v. Woodbury (1915), 167 App. Div. 428, 153 N. Y. Supp. 537. Railroad bridges crossing streets, highways and public places, are tangible property used in connection with a special franchise, but highway bridges cannot be so considered unless the tracks remain on the surface. Nevertheless, the amount paid by a railroad for its share of the construction of a highway bridge may be § 4. Exemptions from taxation. L. 1916, ch. 411. considered in estimating the intangible value. Atty. Genl. Opin., 5 State Dep. Rep. 460 (1915). Where a structure is forced on a railroad, under section 65 of the Railroad Law, solely for street purposes, then so far as the assessment of the tangible element of a franchise is concerned, its value and even the part contributed by the railroad should not be charged against it. Atty. Genl. Opin., 5 State Dep. Rep. 460 (1915). A lease of real property for a term of three years or more constitutes "tangible" property. Atty. Genl. Opin. (1915), 4 State Dep. Rep. 524. Special franchise tax upon the subway and bridges as part of the tangible property of a railroad.—Where a railroad company has possessed for many years a franchise to maintain and operate its railroad through a street of a city, but for the purpose of eliminating grade crossings a subway for a street to pass under the railroad and two overhead bridges for two other streets to pass over the railroad were constructed, toward the cost of which structures the railroad company was compelled to contribute, under the provisions of the Railroad Law, such subway and overhead bridges are not the property of the railroad company, and hence are not subject to an assessment for a special franchise tax as part of the tangible property of the company. The fact that the abutments of the bridges may rest upon the right of way of the railroad company and that its tracks may rest on top of the subway does not make such structures any part of the property of the company. These structures are part of the public street and the company has no control over the same or power to change them except upon authority of the proper municipal officials. People ex rel. N. Y., O. & W. R. Co. v. Tax Commissioners (1915), 215 N. Y. 434, revg. 166 App. Div. 632. Franchise to construct and maintain railroad bridgés and viaducts over navigable waters. Where a railroad company incorporated under a special statute (L. 1866, ch. 763) was authorized by such statute to construct, maintain and operate its railroad over certain navigable rivers and streams, subject to the public easement of navigation, upon condition that it should construct and maintain in a manner prescribed by the statute "substantial bridges with suitable draws, and viaducts with proper openings, over or across the same, whenever the same may be necessary," and the railroad company has erected and maintains bridges and trestles for its railroad to pass over such navigable waters, such bridges and trestles are tangible property situated above public waters, and the franchise or right of the company to cross such waters and to construct and maintain its bridges and trestles over the same is a special franchise liable to assessment and taxation. People ex rel. Harlem River and Port Chester R. R. Co. v. State Board of Tax Commissioners (1915), 215 N. Y. 507, affg. 165 App. Div. 609. The words "stocks in moneyed corporations," as used in subdivision 5, include shares of stock in State and national banks. Atty. Genl. Opin., 5 State Dep. Rep. 471 (1915). 8 4. Exemption from taxation.-Subd. 7, amended by L. 1916, ch. 411, in effect May 3, 1916, as follows: 7. The real property of a corporation or association organized exclusively for the moral or mental improvement of men or women, or for religious, bible, tract, charitable, benevolent, missionary, hospital, infirmary, educational, scientific, literary, library, patriotic, historical or cemetery purposes, or for the enforcement of laws relating to children or animals, or for two or more such purposes, and used exclusively for carrying out thereupon one or more of such purposes, and the personal property of any such corporation shall be exempt from taxation. But no such cor L. 1916, ch. 411. Exemptions from taxation. $ 4. poration or association shall be entitled to any such exemption if any of ficer, member or employee thereof shall receive or may be lawfully entitled to receive any pecuniary profit from the operations thereof, except reasonable compensation for services in effecting one or more of such purposes, or as proper beneficiaries of its strictly charitable purposes; or if the organization thereof for any such avowed purposes be a guise or pretense for directly or indirectly making any other pecuniary profit for such corporation or association, or for any of its members or employees, or if it be not in good faith organized or conducted exclusively for one or more of such purposes. The real property of any such corporation or association entitled to such exemption held by it exclusively for one or more of such purposes and from which no rents, profits or income are derived, shall be so exempt, though not in actual use therefor by reason of the absence of suitable buildings or improvements thereon, if the construction of such buildings or improvements is in progress, or is in good faith contemplated by such corporation or association; or if such real property is held by such corporation or association upon condition that the title thereto shall revert in case any building not intended and suitable for one or more of such purposes shall be erected upon said premises or some part thereof. The real property of any such corporation not so used exclusively for carrying out thereupon one or more of such purposes but leased or otherwise used for other purposes, shall not be exempt, but if a portion only of any lot or building of any such corporation or association is used exclusively for carrying out thereupon one or more such purposes of any such corporation or association, then such lot or building shall be so exempt only to the extent of the value of the portion so used, and the remaining or other portion, to the extent of the value of such remaining or other portion, shall be subject to taxation; provided, however, that a lot or building owned and actually used for hospital purposes, by a free public hospital, depending for maintenance and support upon voluntary charity, shall not be taxed as to a portion thereof leased or otherwise used for the purposes of income, when such income is necessary for, and is actually applied to the maintenance and support of such hospital, and further provided that the real property of any fraternal corporation, association or body created to build and maintain a building or buildings for its meeting or meetings of the general assembly of its members, or subordinate bodies of such fraternity and for the accommodation of other fraternal bodies or associations, the entire net income of which real property is exclusively applied or to be used to build, furnish and maintain an asylum or asylums, a home or homes, a school or schools, for the free education or relief of the members of such fraternity, or for the relief, support and care of worthy and indigent members of the fraternity, their wives, widows or orphans, shall be exempt from taxation, and provided also that the real estate owned by a free public library, situate outside of a city, shall not be taxed as to that portion thereof leased or otherwise used for purposes of |