IN MASSACHUSETTS A TREATISE ON THE ASSESSMENT AND COLLECTION OF INTRODUCTION Since the publication of the first edition of this work in 1913, there have been each year many amendments of the statutes relating to taxation and decisions of the courts of this commonwealth interpreting them, and also, decisions of the highest courts of the commonwealth and of the United States defining the limits of the constitutional power of the legislature with respect to taxation. The author has attempted, with more or less success, to keep the original edition of the book abreast of these amendments and decisions by a series of supplements; but there have occurred during this period a number of radical changes in the system of taxation which it has proved difficult to treat in a satisfactory way by means of a supplement. Among these were the provisions for the foreclosure of tax titles, adopted in 1915, the income tax law of 1916, the general betterment act of 1918 and the new system of taxing business corporations, both foreign and domestic, adopted in 1919. Finally, the enactment of the new codification of the General Laws in 1921, with its new chapter and section numbers has rendered obsolete and useless a textbook based upon the chapters and sections of the Revised Laws, and it has become necessary either to prepare an entirely new edition of Taxation in Massachusetts or to allow the results of the time and labor expended upon the first edition to lapse into a condition of unavailability for further usefulness. As there is no other work in existence covering the same subject, the latter alternative should, it is believed, be avoided if possible. The author has therefore, somewhat reluctantly, undertaken the preparation of a second edition. In the effort to introduce the much new and important material that has come into existence, or been brought to the author's knowledge, since 1913, without unduly increasing the size of the book, it has been necessary to save space in many ways. The differentiation between the statutes and the text has been accomplished by printing the statutes in smaller type instead of indenting them, as in the first edition, and much has been saved in this manner. The |