Excerpt from Report of the Joint Legislative Committee on Taxation of the State of New York: Transmitted to the Legislature February 14, 1916 The taxation of personal property in the State of New York has presented a serious problem for the last fifty years. Prior to 1852, because of the low rate, the burden of the tax does not seem to have been seriously felt, nor the inequalities which have since arisen in its administration to have existed. However, in 1872, the rate for state and local purposes had risen to three per cent and the defects and injustice of the taxation of personal property at the general property rate became more and more apparent. The situation resulted in the appointment of the Commission of 1872, which was one of the first of the many commissions that have investigated and reported on this troublesome problem. This problem still remains unsolved. During the last thirty years the State has developed a system of special taxes imposing specific taxes upon certain classes of personal property and businesses, withdrawing them thereby out from under the personal property tax. Thus, banks, trust companies, mortgages and motor vehicles are all free from the local personal property tax and are taxable under special laws. But, except for these particular classes, the great mass of personal property in the State is still taxed locally at the same rate as real estate, and under the same rule as existed a half century ago. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.