SEC. 7. In case any of the Confederate States shall undertake to pay the tax to be collected within its limits before the time at which the district collectors shall enter upon the discharge of their duties, the Secretary of the Treasury may suspend the appointment of such collectors, and may direct the chief collector to appoint assessors, and to take proper measures for the making and perfecting the returns, assessments and lists required by law; and the returns, assessments and lists so made, shall have the same legal validity, to all intents and purposes, as if made according to the provisions of the act to which this act is supplementary. the fourth section of said act, is hereby de- | to occasion destruction of crops or property, clared to be subject to assessment and tax- the Secretary of the Treasury may suspend ation, and the money at interest, or invest- the collection of tax in such region until ed by individuals in the purchase of bills, the same can be reported to Congress, and notes, and other securities for money, shall its action had thereon. be deemed to include securities for money belonging to non-residents, and such securities shall be returned, and the tax thereon paid by any agent or trustee having the same in possession or under his control. The term merchandise shall be construed to include merchandise belonging to any non-resident, and the property shall be returned, and the tax paid by any person having the same in possession as agent, attorney, or consignee: Provided, That the words money at interest," as used in the act to which this act is an amendment, shall be so construed as to include all notes, or other evidences of debt, bearing interest, without reference to the consideration of the same. The exception allowed by the twentieth section for agricultural products shall be construed to embrace such products only when in the hands of the producer, or held for his account. But no tax shall be assessed or levied on any money at interest when the notes, bond, bill, or other security taken for its payment, shall be worthless from the insolvency and total inability to pay of the payer or obligor, or person liable to make such payment; and all securities for money payable under this act shall be assessed according to their value, and the assessor shall have the same power to ascertain the value of such securities as the law confers upon him with respect to other property. SEC. 4. That an amount of money, not exceeding $25,000, shall be and the same is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, to be disbursed under the authority of the Secretary of the Treasury, to the chief State tax collectors, for such expenses as shall be actually incurred for salaries of clerks, office hire, stationery, and incidental charges; but the books and printing required shall be at the expense of the department, and subject to its approval. SEC. 5. The lien for the tax shall attach from the date of the assessment, and shall follow the same into every State in the Confederacy; and in case any person shall attempt to remove any property which may be liable to tax, beyond the jurisdiction of the State in which the tax is payable, without payment of the tax, the collector of the district may distrain upon and sell the same, in the same manner as is provided in cases where default is made in the payment of the tax. SEC. 6. On the report of any chief collector, that any county, town or district, or any part thereof, is occupied by the public enemy, or has been so occupied as SEC. 8. That tax lists already given, varying from the provisions of this act, shall be corrected so as to conform thereto. THE TAX ACT OF APRIL 24, 1863. [From the Richmond Whig, April 21.] We present below a synopsis of the bill to lay taxes for the common defence and to carry on the government of the Confederate States, which has passed both branches of Congress. It is substantially the bill proposed by the committee on conference: 1. The first section imposes a tax of eight per cent. upon the value of all naval stores, salt, wines and spirituous liquors, tobacco, manufactured or unmanufactured, cotton, wool, flour, sugar, molasses, syrup, rice, and other agricultural products, held or owned on the 1st day of July next, and not necessary for family consumption for the unexpired portion of the year 1863, and of the growth or production of any year preceding the year 1863; and a tax of one per cent. upon all moneys, bank notes or other currency on hand or on deposit on the 1st day of July next, and on the value of all credits on which the interest has not been paid, and not employed in a business, the income derived from which is taxed under the provisions of this act: Provided, That all moneys owned, held or deposited beyond the limits of the Confederate States shall be valued at the current rate of exchange in Confederate treasury notes. The tax to be assessed on the first day of July and collected on the first day of October next, or as soon thereafter as may be practicable. 2. Every person engaged, or intending to engage, in any business named in the fifth section, shall, within sixty days after the passage of the act, or at the time of beginning business, and on the first of January in each year thereafter, register with the district collector a true account of the name and residence of each person, firm, or corporation engaged or interested in the business, with a statement of the time for which, and the place and manner in which the same is to be conducted, &c. At the time of the registry there shall be paid the specific tax for the year ending on the next 31st of December, and such other tax as may be due upon sales or receipts in such business. 3. Any person failing to make such registry and pay such tax, shall, in addition to all other taxes upon his business imposed by the act, pay double the amount of the specific tax on such business, and a like sum for every thirty days of such failure. 4. Requires a separate registry and tax for each business mentioned in the fifth section, and for each place of conducting the same; but no tax for mere storage of goods at a place other than the registered place of business. A new registry required upon every change in the place of conducting a registered business, upon the death of any person conducting the same, or upon the transfer of the business to another, but no additional tax. 5. Imposing the following taxes for the year ending 31st of December, 1863, and for each year thereafter: Bankers shall pay $500. Auctioneers, retail dealers, tobacconists, pedlers, cattle brokers, apothecaries, photographers, and confectioners, $50, and two and a half per centum on the gross amount of sales made. Wholesale dealers in liquors, $200, and five per centum on gross amount of sales. Retail dealers in liquors, $100, and ten per centum on gross amount of sales. Wholesale dealers in groceries, goods, wares, merchandise, &c., $200, and two and a half per centum. Pawnbrokers, money and exchange brokers, $200. Distillers, $200, and twenty per centum. Brewers, $100, and two and a half per cen tum. Livery stable keepers, lawyers, physicians, surgeons, and dentists, $50. Butchers and bakers, $50, and one per centum. 6. Every person registered and taxed is required to make returns of the gross amount of sales from the passage of the act to the 30th of June, and every three months thereafter. 7. A tax upon all salaries, except of persons in the military or naval service, of one per cent. when not exceeding $1,500, and two per cent. upon an excess over that amount: Provided, That no taxes shall be imposed by virtue of this act on the salary of any person receiving a salary not exceeding $1,000 per annum, or at a like rate for another period of time, longer or shorter. 8. Provides that the tax on annual in five comes, between $500 and $1,500, shall be five per cent. on the first $1,500 and ten per cent.; between $1,500 and $3,000, per cent. on the excess; between $3,000 and $5,000, ten per cent.; between $5,000 and $10,000, twelve and a half per cent.; over $10,000, fifteen per cent., subject to the following deductions: On incomes derived from rents of real estate, manufacturing, and mining establishments, &c., a sum sufficient for necessary annual repairs; on incomes from any mining or manufacturing business, the rent, (if rented,) cost of labor actually hired, and raw material; on incomes from navigating enterprises, the hire of the vessel, or allowance for wear and tear of the same, not exceeding ten per cent.; on incomes derived from the sale of merchandise or any other property, the prime cost of transportation, salaries of clerks, and rent of buildings; on incomes from any other occupation, the salaries of clerks, rent, cost of labor, material, &c.; and in case of mutual insurance companies, the amount of losses paid by them during the year. Incomes derived from other sources are subject to no deductions whatever. All joint stock companies and corporations shall pay one tenth of the dividend Hotels, inns, taverns, and eating-houses, and reserved fund annually. If the anfirst class, $500; second class, $300; third nual earnings shall give a profit of more class, $200; fourth class, 100; fifth class, than ten and less than twenty per cent. on $30. Every house where food or refresh-capital stock, one eighth to be paid; if ments are sold, and every boarding house where there shall be six boarders or more, shall be deemed an eating house under this act. Commercial brokers or commission merchants, $200, and two and a half per centum. Theatres, $500, and five per centum on all receipts. Each circus, $100, and $10 for each exhibition. Jugglers and other persons exhibiting shows, $50. Bowling alleys and billiard rooms, $40 for each alley or table registered. more than twenty per cent., one sixth. The tax to be collected on the 1st of Janu ary next, and of each year thereafter. 9. Relates to estimates and deductions, investigations, referees, &c. 10. A tax of ten per cent. on all profits in 1862 by the purchase and sale of flour, corn, bacon, pork, oats, hay, rice, salt, iron or the manufactures of iron, sugar, molasses made of cane, butter, woolen cloths, shoes, boots, blankets, and cotton cloths. Does not apply to regular retail business. 11. Each farmer, after reserving for his SEC. 4. Profits in trade and business taxed as follows: Own use fifty bushels sweet and fifty | ing Confederate Treasury notes, and not bushels Irish potatoes, one hundred bushels employed in a registered business taxed corn or fifty bushels wheat produced this twenty-five per cent. year, shall pay and deliver to the Confederate Government one tenth of the grain, potatoes, forage, sugar, molasses, cotton, wool, and tobacco produced. After reserving twenty bushels peas or beans he shall deliver one tenth thereof. 12. Every farmer, planter, or grazier, one tenth of the hogs slaughtered by him, in cured bacon, at the rate of sixty pounds of bacon to one hundred pounds of pork; one per cent. upon the value of all neat cattle, horses, mules, not used in cultivation, and asses, to be paid by the owners of the same; beeves sold to be taxed as income. 13. Gives in detail the duties of post quartermasters under the act. 14. Relates to the duties of assessors and collectors. 15. Makes trustees, guardians, &c., responsible for taxes due from estates, &c., under their control. 16. Exempts the income and moneys of hospitals, asylums churches, schools, and colleges from taxation under the act. 17. Authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to make all rules and regulations necessary to the operation of the act. 18. Provides that the act shall be in force for two years from the expiration of the present year, unless sooner repealed; that the tax on naval stores, flour, wool, cotton, tobacco, and other agricultural products of the growth of any year preceding 1863, imposed in the first section, shall be levied and collected only for the present year. The tax act of February 17, 1864, levies, in addition to the above rates, the followIng, as stated in the Richmond Sentinel of February, 1864: SEC. 1. Upon the value of real, personal, and mixed property, of every kind and description, except the exemptions hereafter to be named, five per cent.; the tax levied on property employed in agriculture to be credited by the value of property in kind. On gold and silver ware, plate, jewels, and watches, ten per cent. The tax to be levied on the value of property in 1860, except in the case of land, slaves, cotton, and tobacco, purchased since January 1st, 1862, upon which the tax shall be levied on the price paid. SEC. 2. A tax of five per cent. on the value of all shares in joint stock companies of any kind, whether incorporated or not. The shares to be valued at their market value at the time of assessment. SEC. 3. Upon the market value of gold and silver coin or bullion, five per cent.; also the same upon moneys held abroad, or all bills of exchange drawn therefor. On the purchase and sale of agricultural products and mercantile wares generally, from January 1, 1863, to January 1, 1865, ten per cent. in addition to the tax under the act of April 24, 1863. The same on the purchase and sale of coin, exchange, stocks, notes, and credits of any kind, and any property not included in the foregoing. On the amount of profits exceeding twenty-five per cent. of any bank, banking company, or joint stock company of any description, incorporated or not, twenty-five per cent. on such excess. SEC 5. The following are exempted from taxation. Five hundred dollars' worth of property for each head of a family, and a hundred dollars additional for each minor child; and for each son in the army or navy, or who has fallen in the service, and a member of the family when he enlisted, the further sum of $500. One thousand dollars of the property of the widow or minor children of any officer, soldier, sailor, or marine, who has died in the service. A like amount of property of any officer, soldier, sailor, or marine, engaged in the service, or who has been disabled therein, provided said property, exclusive of furniture, does not exceed in value $1,000. When property has been injured or destroyed by the enemy, or the owner unable temporarily to use or occupy it by reason of the presence or proximity of the enemy, the assessment may be reduced in proportion to the damage sustained by the owner, and the tax in the same ratio by the district collector. SEC. 6. The taxes on property for 1864 to be assessed as on the day of the passage of this act, and collected the 1st of June next, with ninety days extension west of the Mississippi. The additional tax on incomes or profits for 1863, to be paid forthwith; the tax on incomes, &c., for 1864, to be collected according to the acts of 1863. SEC. 7. Exempts from tax on income for 1864, all property herein taxed ad valorem. The tax on Confederate bonds in no case to exceed the interest payable on the same; and said bonds exempt from tax when held by minors or lunatics, if the interest do not exceed one thousand dollars. THE TAX LAW. We learn that, according to the construction of the recent tax law in the Treasury A tax of five per cent. on all solvent Department, tax payers will be required to credits, and on all bank bills and papers state the articles and objects subjected to a used as currency, except non-interest-bear-specific or ad valorem tax, held, owned, or possessed by them on the 17th day of February, 1864, the date of the act. The daily wages of detailed soldiers and other employés of the Government are not liable to taxation as income, although they may amount, in the aggregate, to the sum of $1,000 per annum. A tax additional to both the above was imposed as follows, June 1, 1864: A bill to provide supplies for the army, and to prescribe the mode of making impressments. SEC. 3. The Secretary of War may, at his discretion, decline to assess, or, after assessment, may decline to collect the whole or any part of the additional one tenth herein provided for, in any district or locality; and it shall be his duty promptly to give notice of any such determination, specifying, with reasonable certainty, the district or locality and the product, or the proportion thereof, as to which he so declines. with the duty of providing for the families of soldiers. Such sale shall be at the prices paid or assessed for the products sold, including the actual cost of collections. SEC. 4. The products received for the contribution herein required, shall be disSEC. 1. The Congress of the Confederate posed of and accounted for in the same States of America do enact, Every person manner as those received for the tax in required to pay a tax in kind, under the kind; and the Secretary of War may, provisions of the “Act to lay taxes for the whenever the exigencies of the public sercommon defense and carry on the Govern- vice will allow, authorize the sale of proment of the Confederate States," approved ducts received from either source, to pub April 24, 1863, and the act amendatory lic officers or agents charged in any State thereof, approved February 17, 1864, shall, in addition to the one tenth required by said acts to be paid as a tax in kind, deliver to the Confederate Government, of the products of the present year and of the year 1865, one other tenth of the several products taxed in kind by the acts aforesaid, which additional one tenth shall be ascertained, assessed and collected, in all respects, as is provided by law for the said tax in kind, and shall be paid for, on delivery, by the Post-Quartermasters in the several districts at the assessed value thereof, except that payment for cotton and tobacco shall be made by the agents of the Treasury Department appointed to receive the same. SEC. 5. If, in addition to the tax in kind and the contribution herein required, the necessities of the army or the good of the service shall require other supplies of food or forage, or any other private property, and the same cannot be procured by contract, then impressments may be made of such supplies or other property, either for absolute ownership or for temporary use, as the public necessities may require. Such impressments shall be made in accordance with the provisions, and subject to the restrictions of the existing impressment laws, except so far as is herein otherwise provided. and collection of the tax in kind and of the contribution herein required; and all officers and soldiers in any department of the army are hereby expressly prohibited from undertaking in any manner to interfere with these officers and agents in any part of their duties in respect to the tax in kind, the contribution, or the impressment herein provided for: Provided, That this prohibition shall not be applicable to any district, county, or parish in which there shall be no officer or agent charged with the appointment and collection of the tax in kind. SEC. 2. The supplies necessary to the support of the producer and his family, and to carry on his ordinary business, shall be exempted from the contribution required SEC. 6. The right and the duty of makby the preceding section, and from the ad-ing impressments is hereby confided excluditional impressments authorized by the sively to the officers and agents charged in act: Provided, however, That nothing here- the several districts with the assessment in contained shall be construed to repeal or affect the provisions of an act entitled "An act to authorize the impressment of meat for the use of the army, under certain circumstances," approved Feb. 17, 1864, and if the amount of any article or product s necessary cannot be agreed upon between the assessor and the producer, it shall be ascertained and determined by disinterested freeholders of the vicinage, as is provided in cases of disagreement as to the estimates and assessments of tax in kind. If required by the assessor, such freeholder shall ascertain whether a producer, who is found unable to furnish the additional one tenth of any one product, cannot supply the deficiency by the delivery of an equivalent in other products, and upon what terms such commutation shall be made. Any commutation thus awarded shall be enforced and collected, in all respects, as is provided for any other contribution required by this act. SEC. 7. Supplies or other property taken by impressment shall be paid for by the post quartermasters in the several districts, and shall be disposed of and accounted for by them as is required in respect to the tax in kind and the contribution herein required; and it shall be the duty of the post quartermasters to equalize and apportion the impressments within their die within the limits of said State shall be free," and insert: Within the limits of the said State there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall be duly convicted. Which was rejected---yeas 11, nays 24, as follows: YEAS-Messrs. Chandler, Clark, Grimes, King, Lane of Kansas, Pomeroy, Sumner, Trumbull, Wilkinson, Wilmot, Wilson, of Massachusetts--11. tricts, as far as practicable, so as to avoid oppressing any portion of the community. SEC. 8. If any one not authorized by law to collect the tax in kind or the contribution herein required, or to make impressments, shall undertake, on any pretence of such authority, to seize or impress, or to collect or receive any such property, or shall, on any such pretence, actually obtain such property, he shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by fine not exceeding five times the value of such property, and be imprisoned not exceeding five years, at the discretion of the court having jurisdic- NAYS--Messrs. Anthony, Bayard, Browntion. And it shall be the duty of all offi- ing, Carlile, Collamer, Doolittle, Foot Foscers and agents charged with the assess-ter, Harris, Henderson, Howe, Kennedy, ment and collection of the tax in kind Lane of Indiana, Powell, Rice, Saulsbury, and of the contribution herein required, Sherman, Simmons, Stark, Ten Eyck, promptly to report, through the post quar- Wade, Wiley, Wilson of Missouri, Wright termasters in the several districts, any vio---24. lation or disregard of the provisions of this act by any officer or soldier in the service of the Confederate States. In Senate, 1862, July 14.-The bill providing for the admission of the State of West Virginia into the Union, passed--yeas 23, nays 17, as follows! YEAS-Messrs. Anthony, Clark, Collamer, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, Harris, Howe, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morrill, Pomeroy, Rice, Sherman, Simmons, Ten Eyck, Wade, Wilkinson, Willey, Wilson of Massachusetts-23. Mr. Willey proposed to strike out all after the word "That" in the first section, and insert: That the State of West Virginia be, and is hereby, declared to be one of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, and until the next general census shall be entitled to three members in the House of Representatives of the United States: Provided always, That this act shall not take effect until after the proclamation of the President of the United States hereinafter provided for. SEC. 2. It being represented to Congress that since the convention of the 26th of November, 1861, that framed and proposed the constitution for the said State of West Virginia, the people thereof have expressed a wish to change the seventh section of the eleventh article of said constitution by striking out the same, and inserting the following in its place, namely, "The children of slaves born within the limits of this State after the 4th day of July, 1863, shall be free, and no slave shall be permitted to come into the State for permanent residence therein:" therefore, Be it further enacted, That whenever the people of West Virginia shall, through their said convention, and by a vote to be taken at an election to be held within the limits of the State at such time as the convention may provide, make and ratify the change aforesaid and properly certify the same under the hand of the president of the convention, it shall be lawful for the NAYS-Messrs. Bayard, Browning, Car- President of the United States to issue his lile, Chandler, Cowan, Davis, Howard, proclamation stating the fact, and thereKennedy, King, McDougal, Powell, Sauls-upon this act shall take effect and be in bury, Stark, Sumner, Trumbull, Wilson of force from and after sixty days from the Missouri, Wright-17. date of said proclamation. During the pendency of this bill, July 14, 1862, Mr. Sumner moved to strike from the first section of the second article the words: "the children of all slaves born Mr Lane of Kansas moved to amend the amendment by inserting after the word "Herein,' and before the word, “Therefore" the words: |