TAXATION AND REVENUE SYSTEMS—RHODE ISLAND. 
203 
CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS. 
ARTICLE I. 
Sec. 2. * * * all laws should be made for the good of 
the whole; and the burdens of the state ought to be fairly 
distributed among its citizens. 
ARTICLE IV. 
Sec. 15. The general assembly shall, from time to time, pro 
vide for making new valuations of property for the assessment 
of taxes in such manner as they deem best. 
AMENDMENT VII. 
Sec. 2. The assessors of each town and city shall annually 
assess upon every person, who, if registered, would be qualified 
to vote, a tax of $1 or such sum as with his other taxes shall 
amount to $1, which tax shall be paid into the treasury of the 
town or city to be applied to the support of public schools 
therein. 
OFFICERS. 
The officers most directly concerned with taxation 
are: 
(1) Tax assessors, usually three in number, in each town, 
elected for different terms, one being elected annually at the 
town elections. They receive such compensation as the town 
allows. 
(2) Collectors of taxes elected annually at the town meet 
ing. They are paid a commission of 5 per cent for collecting, 
unless they agree with the towns for less. In cities, if no 
tax collector is elected, his duties are performed by the city 
treasurer. 
(3) The state board of tax commissioners, three in number, 
appointed by the governor for terms of six years, the term of 
one member expiring every two years. 
(4) General treasurer of the state elected every two years. 
State Revenues. 
A. GENERAL PROPERTY TAXES. 
1. Base— 
a. The 'property included and exempt.—All real 
property in the state, all personal property belonging 
to the inhabitants thereof, and all tangible personal 
property located in the state belonging to nonresi 
dents is liable to taxation unless otherwise specially 
provided. 
(1) Real estate, for the purpose of taxation, includes all 
lands and buildings, buildings on leased land, the leases 
whereof are written and recorded; the main wheels, steam 
engines, dynamos, boilers, and shafts, whether upright or 
horizontal, drums, pulleys, and wheels attached to any real 
estate for operating machinery, and all steam pipes, gas and 
water pipes, ammonia pipes, air pipes, gas fixtures, electric fix 
tures, and water fixtures attached to and all kettles set and 
used in any manufacturing establishment when owned by the 
owners of the real estate to which they are attached. 
(2) Personal property, for the purposes of taxation, in 
cludes all goods, chatties, debts due from solvent persons, 
money and effects, wherever they may be, all ships or vessels, 
at home or abroad, all stocks and securities, shares in any 
bank or banking association, in any turnpike, bridge, or other 
corporation, within or without the state, except such as are 
specially exempt. 
Tangible personal property is partially defined to in 
clude the fixtures enumerated above, under Real estate, when 
not owned in such a manner as to bring them under the 
definition of real estate, also all picking, carding, spooling, 
drawing, spinning, and reeling frames, dressing and warping 
machines, looms, tools, and machines of all sorts propelled by 
steam, water, electric, or other power in any factory, machine 
shop, print works, manufacturing or other establishment of 
any kind; and all live stock and farming tools on farms; all 
fixtures, tools, machinery, stock in livery stables, live stock, 
farming tools, goods, wares, merchandise, and other stock in 
trade, including stock in the business of manufacturing or of 
the mechanic arts, and all other tangible personal property 
situated or being in any town, in or upon any store, mill, 
dockyard, piling ground, place for the sale of property, shop, 
office, mine, quarry, farm, place of storage, manufactory, 
warehouse, or dwelling house. The purpose of this definition 
is to define the situs of such property, which is to be in the 
town or city in which such tangible personal property is 
located. 
(3) Exemptions are: Property belonging to the state and 
to the United States (town and city property is not alto 
gether exempt and, as a matter of fact, has been included in 
state, but not in local, valuations) ; buildings for free public 
schools and buildings for religious worship and the land on 
which they stand, not exceeding 1 acre, as far as used for 
religious or educational purposes; buildings and the land on 
which they stand, not exceeding 1 acre, and personal estate 
of any corporation used in educational purposes not for 
profit; estates and persons of the president and professors of 
Brown University and their families to an amount not ex 
ceeding $10,000 for each officer; lands used exclusively for 
burial purposes; property, real and personal, of incorporated 
library societies and free public libraries; property held for 
the support of the poor, for hospitals, or for public education; 
almshouses with lands, except that almshouses belonging to 
towns are subject to taxation by school districts in which they 
are situated; bonds and other securities issued and exempted 
from taxation by the government of the United States, or of 
this state; estates of persons who. in the judgment of the 
assessors, are unable to pay; the household furniture and 
family stores of a housekeeper in the whole, including beds 
and bedding, not exceeding in value the sum of $300: the 
bibles, school books, and other books in use in the family, not 
exceeding in value the sum of $300; land, not more than 300 
acres to one person and worth not more than $25 an acre, 
planted to certain kinds of trees and managed under a forest 
working plan approved by the state commissioner of forestry 
for 15 years from the time of planting or necessary replanting: 
manufacturing property by vote of the towns for 10 years. 
Residents of this state shall not be taxed in this state for 
shares held by them in national banking associations located 
without this state, the shares of which are taxed in the states 
where such national banking associations are located. 
The property of any honorably discharged Union soldier or 
sailor of the War of the Rebellion, or of the widow (remaining 
unmarried) of such soldier or sailor, to be exempt from tax 
ation to the amount of $1,000. unless said soldier or sailor or 
widow thereof shall voluntarily make waiver of said exemp 
tion at time of assessment, or shall be possessed of property of 
the value of $5,000. The property of the wife of any such 
soldier or sailor is likewise exempted from taxation in like