292564228

56

MR. A. W. FLUX, M.A., UN CITY GOVERNMENT AND

a system established by the authorities; land on which buddings stand is taken at its market value, the buildings at their insurance value. The amount levied on each of the named values is called a 'portion of land tax. A portion inside the old city pays approximately 17s. 5d., and a portion outside the old city pays 20s. 9d. a year. The persistence of the old land valuation makes that part of the tax, like our land tax, a rent charge simply. The additions to the old tax are devised so as not to take on the fixity to which such taxes seem everywhere to tend, while they render the name land tax barely appro- priate. The yield of the land tax was, in the years 1894-98, on the average, £61,800, or close to 15 per cent of the total tax revenue. Next may be named the tax on the floor-area of houses. A tax on this basis is levied both for the purposes of the city and for the State as well, the name buildings-tax being given in the . latter case. Small tenements are not taxable, the limit for the city’s tax being 30 square yards, for the State buildings-tax 25 per cent higher. The charge is, in the most closely approximate units of English currency (since mathematical precision is here not important), at the rate of 3fd. per square yard of floor-area in houses fronting on the Street, 2 £d. per square yard in the houses at the side or back of the yard round which, as before noted, many houses are built. The revenue from this source was £129,800 on the average of 1894-98, or 31 per cent of the total tax-revenue. It has replaced some older taxes, among which were charges for water and a contribution for poor-relief purposes. In reference to this tax, a very remarkable faet was told me by the head of the taxation department of the city, who was most courteous and patient in explaining to me matters on which I sought his help as an absolut© stranger. The floor-tax is, as a matter of faet, levied universally from property owner3. I was not a little surprised to learn that it was legally imposable on tenants, and that eon- venienoe and custom alone, in the face of the law, govem