72 
THE A B C OF TAXATION 
certainly show that the property was greatly under 
assessed. 
Boston’s Ground Rent $55,000,000 
In the estimate, offered in Chapter I, page 18, is 
clearly shown the all-sufficiency of ground rent to 
bear the whole burden of present taxation. Criti 
cism of these figures, with fair consideration of the 
process and steps of the calculation, will be welcome. 
The 155,000,000 ground rent of Boston is the 
natural tax which the people of Boston pay for the 
occupancy and use of their land. This, it is sub 
mitted, is tax enough for them to pay. But, since 
only 110,382,628 of this natural tax is taken for public 
purposes, while 144,617,372 is permitted to be absorbed 
into private incomes, by the “private appropriation 
of ground rent,” the people of Boston have to pay 
an additional tax of 113,038,91400 buildings, personal 
property, and polls, with the result that the occupancy 
of their land, with its benefits of good government and 
public service, costs the people of Boston to-day in 
round numbers:* 
The natural tax of ..... $55,000,000 
An unnatural tax (on buildings, personal property, 
and polls) of 13,038,914 
Total burden of taxation .... $68,038,914 
Of its ground rent, estimated as above at . . $55,000,00o 
Boston now takes in taxation less than two-tenths, 
or . . . . _ . . . . $10,382,628 
While Boston’s whole tax is much less than five- 
tenths, or $23,421,542 
* Credit for this simple formula of great convenience in dealing ■with taxation 
in any locality is due to Mr. James R. Garret, a Boston lawyer and conveyancer.