148 
TAXATION AND REVENUE SYSTEMS—NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
NEW HAMPSHIRE. 1 
New Hampshire depends mainly upon the combined 
property and poll tax for state, county, and municipal 
revenues. State and county taxes are apportioned 
to the towns, which are held responsible for their 
assessment and collection, except the taxes on railroad, 
express, and cpx companies, and telegraph and tele 
phone companies, which are assessed and collected by 
the state authorities. There are some special corpora 
tion taxes on insurance companies and savings banks, 
and there is an inheritance tax. 
CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS. 
Art. 12. Every member of the community has a right to be pro 
tected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property. He 
is, therefore, bound to contribute his share in the expense of such 
protection and to yield his personal service, when necessary, or an 
equivalent. 
Art. 28. No subsidy, charge, tax, impost, or duty shall be estab 
lished, laid, or levied without the consent of the people or their 
representatives in the legislature, or authority derived from that 
body. 
Art. 5. Full power and authority are hereby given and granted 
to the general court * * * to impose and levy proportional 
and reasonable assessments, rates, and taxes upon all the inhabitants 
of and residents within the state, and upon all estates within the 
same. * * * 
Art. 6. The public charges of government, or any part thereof, 
may be raised by taxation upon polls, estates, and other classes of 
property, including franchises and the transfer or succession of 
property, by will or inheritance; and there shall be a valuation 
of the estates within the state taken anew once in every five years 
at least, and as much oftener as the general court shall order. 
OFFICERS. 
The officers most directly concerned with taxation 
are: 
(1) Selectmen of towns, three chosen at the annual meeting. 
(2) Assessors, also elected at town meeting, who constitute, with 
the selectmen, a joint board for the assessment of taxes. 
(3) Town collectors, chosen at the annual town meeting. 
(4) City assessors, chosen in each ward as may be prescribed by 
city ordinances, who form a board and perform all duties required 
of selectmen and assessors of towns. 
(5) “County convention,” which consists of the representatives 
of the towns of the counties. 
(6) County commissioners, three elected biennially. 
(7) The state tax commission, consisting of three members 
appointed by the supreme court and commissioned by the governor. 
(8) State board of license commissioners, consisting of three 
members appointed by the governor. 
State Revenues. 
A AND B. GENERAL PROPERTY AND POLL TAXES. 
The state levy of general property taxes is appor 
tioned to the towns and raised by them in the same 
manner as their own revenues. The poll tax con 
stitutes an integral part of this tax and can not be 
1 This compilation is derived mainly from the following sources: 
Appendix to the report of the tax commission of 1908, containing 
the laws in force in 1908. Session laws of 1909,1911, and 1913. 
described separately. Polls are put in the “invoice” 
upon which “all taxes” are assessed at 50 cents each, 
and taxable property at 50 cents on each $100 of its 
appraised value. This gives polls a quasi property 
valuation equal to $100. 
1. Base— 
The base is the invoice as described above. 
a. The property included and exempt, and polls.— 
Such property, real and personal, within the juris 
diction of the state, as is expressly enumerated as 
taxable in the statutes. All other property is ex 
empt, as are also certain items in the enumerated 
classes, as shown below. 
The polls included are all males from 21 to 70 
years of age, not specifically exempt. 
Those whose polls are not included are: 
Paupers and insane; soldiers or sailors of the War of the Re 
bellion, if honorably discharged or pensioned; and at the discretion 
of the selectmen, soldiers or sailors who served in the Spanish- 
American War and are disabled in consequence of such service. 
The enumerated classes are: 
(1) Real estate, whether improved or unimproved, and whether 
owned by residents or nonresidents; real estate includes lands, 
tenements, and hereditaments, and all rights thereto and interests 
therein; buildings, mills, carding machines, factory buildings and 
machinery, wharves, ferries, toll bridges, locks and canals, and 
aqueducts, any portion of the water of which is sold or rented 
for pay; lands, dams, canals, water power, buildings, structures, 
machinery, dynamos, apparatus, poles, wires, fixtures of all 
kinds and descriptions owned, operated, and employed by any 
private corporation or person not a municipal corporation in 
generating, producing, supplying, and distributing electric power 
or light; also the property of any railroad, railway, express, tele 
phone, telegraph, sleeping, dining, parlor, and private car com 
panies. 
(2) Personal estate liable to be taxed is: Stock in public funds, 
including all United States, state, county, city, or town stocks or 
bonds and all other interest-bearing bonds not exempt from taxa 
tion by the laws of the United States; stock in corporations in the 
state, except where the property represented by the stock is tax 
able directly to the corporation; stock in corporations located 
outside of the state, owned by persons living in the state, except 
where either the stock or the property represented by it is taxed 
in the towns or states where the corporations are located; money 
on hand or at interest more than the owner pays interest for, in 
cluding money deposited in any bank other than a savings bank, 
or loaned on any mortgage, pledge, obligation, note, or other 
security whether on interest or interest be paid or received in 
advance, but excepting money loaned at a rate of interest not 
exceeding 5 per cent per annum secured by a note and mortgage 
on real estate situate in this state; stock in trade, whether of 
merchants, shopkeepers, mechanics, or tradesmen, at the average 
value for the year; raw materials and manufactures of any manu 
factory, wood, timber, logs, and lumber, if exceeding $50 in value; 
fishing vessels, steamboats, house boats, or other vessels for the 
transportation of passengers or freight and seagoing vessels; vehicles 
the aggregate value of which exceeds $100; horses, asses, and mules 
over 18 months old; sheep over 1 year old, and hogs over 6 months 
old, but 2 hogs for each family are exempt; oxen, cows, and other 
neat stock over 18 months old; fowls of every description exceed 
ing $50 in value; wood, bark, timber, logs-, manufactured or un 
manufactured, exceeding $50 in value; the net yearly income of