Excerpt from Memorial of the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of New York: Praying for the Passage of the Accompanying Act, to Revise and Amend the Existing Laws Relative to the Assessment of Taxes in the City of New York, and to Reduce Them Into One Act It is not doubted that the real estate, notwithstanding its under valuation by the assessors, bears much more than its rightful share of taxation, as compared with the per sonal property. The practical difficulty experienced in ascertaining the amount and value of personal estate liable to assessment, is one cause of the custom which so generally prevails of estimating landed property below its true value. The land is Open to view and examination, its quanties ascertainable with facility and certainty, and by no possi bility can it escape the vigilance of the assessor. The case is Widely different with the varied pecuniary interests and investments which constitute personal estate. By many ingenious devices, perhaps by mere silence on the part of the fortunate owner, a large portion of the wealth of the state eludes the assessor and escapes its share of the cost of sustaining the government, to which all property owes its protection. The existing laws are defective in omitting to clothe the assessors with adequate power to require full and correct information from the tax-payer, of the amount of his personal estate subject to investment. Whilst ample and proper provision has been made in favor of the citizen to enable him to correct errors or over valuation, no means whatever have been supplied to correct under estimates. 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.