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"In order that the greater part of the members of any society should contribute to the public revenue, in proportion to their respective expense, it does not seem necessary that every single article of that expense should be taxed."-ADAM SMITH.

PREFACE.

THE Cobden Club reprinted and circulated last year a Report made by the Commissioners appointed to Revise the Laws for the Assessment and Collection of Taxes in New York, to the Legislature of that State in 1871, containing the results of their inquiry and the conclusions at which they had arrived.

After considering that Report, the Legislature of New York authorised the Commissioners to prepare and submit a Code of Laws, passed in accordance with their recommendations.

In pursuance of this instruction, the Commissioners have this year submitted a draft of a Code of Laws for the Assessment of Taxes in the State of New York, including State, County, City, and Town taxes, which they recommend for adoption; and have in a second report resumed the reasons of their recommendations, analysed the principles upon which the Code has been founded, and given a prospective account of its operation, which the Cobden Club has received permission to reprint in England.

The combination of practical and scientific knowledge exhibited in this Report, and the amount of information

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which it affords, render it, in the opinion of the Committee of the Cobden Club, a very valuable contribution towards the solution of some of the difficult problems connected with the application of the central principle of Cobden's policy, viz., direct taxation, as the only fiscal system under which perfect freedom of trade and industry can be attained, and international progress secured.

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I transmit, herewith, the draft of a code of laws relating to the assessment of taxes in the State of New York, prepared by the "Commissioners on Taxation," under an act of the Legislature, passed May, 1871, together with their report relating to the same.

Having in my annual message urged upon you an early and considerate examination of the system of taxation presented by the commissioners, it is unnecessary for me to do more now than renew that recommendation; and at the same time to express my satisfaction with the labour and care which has manifestly been expended by the commissioners in their conscientious effort to arrive at a uniform, equitable and productive system of tax legislation.

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JOHN T. HOFFMAN.

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