TAXATION AND REVENUE SYSTEMS—NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
149 
ships and vessels engaged in the foreign carrying trade for at least 
10 months of the year preceding the annual assessment; all boats 
and launches the aggregate value of which exceeds $100; portable 
mills; studhorses or jackasses for the use of mares. 
(3) The exemptions are, in addition to public property: Houses 
of worship, parsonages to $2,500, schoolhouses, seminaries of learn 
ing, public cemeteries, and all property held in trust for the benefit 
of public places for the burial of the dead; the real estate and per 
sonal property of charitable associations; land and buildings belong 
ing to the army and navy association of Portsmouth; property to 
the amount of $1,000 of any soldier or sailor who served 60 days in 
the Army of the United States during the War of the Rebellion and 
was honorably discharged, and the wife or widow of the same, pro 
vided the aggregate value of the property is not over $3,000; the 
improvement caused by reclaiming swamp or swale land, for 10 
years; by the vote of a town, for 10 years, any new manufacturing 
establishment; undeveloped mines, unless belonging to others than 
those to whom the real estate is taxed; all public stocks and bonds; 
stock in corporation not for profit; materials to be used in shipbuild 
ing; money loaned to a town by a citizen thereof at a rate of interest 
not exceeding 5 per cent, by a vote of the town; railroads not 10 
years in use; any city, town, precinct, or village district may 
exempt from taxation any future issue of its bonds, owned or held 
by its own citizens; new state hospital bonds; licensed billiard or 
pool tables and bowling alleys; also the minimum values of differ 
ent classes of property and the under-age domestic animals men 
tioned in paragraph (2) preceding. 
Abatements are allowed as follows: Landowners planting timber 
trees upon their land have a rebate for the first 10 years after plant 
ing of 90 per cent of all taxes assessed upon the land; for the second 
10 years, 80 per cent; for the third 10 years, 50 per cent; the select 
men may make reasonable deductions from the appraisals of the 
estates of the insane when the income from the property is not 
sufficient to support them; the selectmen shall abate a sum not 
exceeding $3 from the tax of any inhabitant who shall construct 
and maintain a watering trough for horses; also a reasonable de 
duction for planting and protecting shade trees by any highway; 
also for the use of wide-tired wagons. 
b. Assessment.—The assessment of all polls and prop 
erty, except that of railroads, railways, telegraph, tele 
phone, express, dining, sleeping, parlor, and private 
car companies which are assessed by the state tax 
commission, and except savings banks, trust companies, 
loan and trust companies, loan and banking com 
panies, building and loan associations, and other 
similar companies, which report to the state treasurer, 
is made by the slectmen and the assessors of the towns 
and cities. The roll is known as the “invoice” of 
polls and property. It is made up as of April 1 in 
each year. Each taxpayer is required to furnish a 
sworn inventory of his property. The penalty for 
omitting the inventory or for a false inventory is 
doomage of four times as much as the property would 
be appraised at, if duly returned. The oath of the tax 
payer does not cover the value of the property which 
is to be appraised by the selectmen. The appraisal is 
to be at its full value in money, or at the rate at 
which the property would be taken in payment of a 
just debt due from a solvent debtor. 
Polls are set in the invoice at 50 cents each, and property at the 
rate of 50 cents for each $100 of the appraised value. 
A new invoice is made every year and a new appraisal of all 
property, including real estate. But the state taxes are apportioned 
among the towns and cities only once in two years, the apportion 
ment holding during the interim. 
The following items are set in the invoice separately: Improved 
and unimproved lands, buildings separately assessed, mills, carding 
machines, factories and their machinery, wharves, ferries, toll 
bridges, locks and canals, aqueducts, stocks in public funds, shares 
in banks and in other corporations, money on hand, at interest, or 
on deposit, stock in trade, carriages, horses, asses, and mules, cows, 
oxen, and other neat stock, sheep, hogs, and fowls. 
Mortgages are assessed as money at interest, and no deduction is 
allowed from the appraised value of the property mortgaged. In 
appraising the value of the shares of the capital stock of corpora 
tions a just proportion of the assessed value of any property otherwise 
taxed is to be deducted. Shares are assessed to the owner Avhere 
he resides, if in the state; otherwise, at the principal place cf busi 
ness of the corporation. 
The railroads, as wril as all telegraph and telephone lines and 
the property of car companies and express companies, are assessed 
by the state tax commission upon the actual value of their property 
and estate used in their ordinary business which would not be 
exempt from taxation if owned by a natural person or ordinary 
business corporation, and the companies pay to the state the tax 
thereon at a rate as nearly equal as may be to the average rate on 
other property (excepting property specially taxed, savings bank 
deposits, and polls) throughout the state. The assessed valuation 
of railroads is not apportioned among the towns, but the proceeds 
of the taxes are distributed as follows: (1) To the towns in which 
any railroad is located, one-fourth of the taxes paid by the railroad 
corporation, of which each town receives its proportion according 
to the share of the capital expended in each town for buildings and 
right of way; (2) to each town in which any stock is held, such 
proportion of the remainder as the number of shares owned therein 
bears to the whole number of shares; (3) the remainder for the use 
of the state. 
Selectmen are required to list the shares of railroad stock held by 
inhabitants of their town. If they fail to do so their town is, pre 
sumably, not entitled to its share of the railroad taxes to be appor 
tioned on the stock. 
All shares of stock in banks (private, state, or national), except 
savings banks, building and loan associations, and the like other 
wise taxed, are assessed to the owners in the towns where they 
reside at the value shown by the capital, surplus, and undivided 
profits, after deducting the real estate. The bank pays the taxes 
on the shares for nonresident stockholders and has a lien on the 
stock and on the dividends to secure repayment. 
The property of express companies doing business in the state is 
assessed by the state tax commission on the basis of annual state 
ments furnished by the companies. The same method applies to 
the property of telegraph and telephone companies, to the cars of 
sleeping, dining, and parlor car companies, and the rate is to be the 
average rate of taxation on all property in the state. The proceeds 
of these taxes are retained by the state, except in so far as they may 
enter into some of the special funds that are apportioned to the towns 
or schools. 
All of the property and fixtures used by a person or corporation 
in producing and distributing electric light and power are assessed 
as real estate in the towns where it is located. 
All boats and launches the aggregate value of which exceeds 
$100 are taxed to the owner where the property is located on the 
1st day of April. 
c. Equalization.—Selectmen may, for good cause 
shown, abate any tax assessed by them or their prede 
cessors. If they refuse, the taxpayer may appeal to 
the supreme court of the county. 
The state tax commission in the year 1912 and every 
second year thereafter equalizes the valuation of the