Ohio-Continued. Foreign insurance companies. Railroad companies The Ohio tax commission's report on railroads Telegraph, telephone, and express companies Sleeping, palace, chair, d'ning, and buffet cars, and freight line and equipment companies Excise tax on electric light and gas companies, etc. Collateral inheritance tax Liquor and cigarette taxes Indiana: General property tax.. Personal property Corporate taxation Rate of taxation..... The Indiana system Abstract of tax duplicates from 1878 to 1899 100 Property of banks, bankers, brokers, and stock jobbers.. 122 122 Capital stock of corporations and franchises of persons.. 122 123 Wisconsin: General property tax Liquor license fees Poll tax... Defects in the property-valuation system Taxation of notes, bonds, mortgages, and other securities. Page. 134 137 137 137 139 Water and gas works, electric plants, street railways.. 168 TAXATION IN VARIOUS STATES. To the Industrial Commission: I have the honor to submit herewith a report or compendium of the systems of taxation with especial reference to corporations in each of the following States, viz: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Texas. These States were selected, as directed by the Commission, because of their industrial prominence and the varied character of the systems of corporate taxation therein. It was found that one feature common to all these States, and running through all systems, namely, the general property tax, or as it has been designated, the "American system,” applies not only to individual properties, but also, directly or indirectly, to a greater or less extent, to corporate property as well. This observation is doubtless true of all States in the Union. For this reason it was deemed necessary to set forth the distinctive features of the entire system of taxation in each State applicable to general as well as corporate property, not only as a matter of information, but in order to present an intelligent and comprehensive view of the various methods for the assessment and taxation of corporations, the reasons and principles upon which they are based, and their comparative merits and results. While in some States there is a marked tendency toward the segregation of corporate property from the general property tax, and its subjection to special methods better adapted to property of that peculiar character and reducing the taxation thereof to a rational and harmonious system, thus far the separation is nowhere complete. An effort has been made therefore to present the characteristic features, the merits and defects, of the system in vogue in each State, and in some instances the efforts made to reform it and the difficulties encountered, giving especial attention to the taxation of corporations. In each instance it has been necessary to examine the taxation laws, the work of legislative committees and appointive tax commissions, and a mass of public reports and records in order to present intelligently the system of taxation existing, that your Commission might in the end have a basis for suggestions and recommendations as to changes and reforms in the State systems, and as to interstate action with a view to uniformity of taxation methods applied to corporations. This investigation has necessarily been somewhat tedious and laborious, and this report, in view of the limitation in the time allotted therefor, is submitted with the consciousness that it is not as thorough and complete as the writer would have desired and not devoid of imperfections. I trust, however, that it may serve the purpose of your Commission. REVIEW OF CONDITIONS. In the States hereinafter reported upon are represented substantially all the special methods thus far devised for the taxation of corporations of a quasipublic character, except that of a fixed rate upon net earnings, which is in vogue in the States of Delaware and Virginia, and advocated by some distinguished |