REPORT. STATE OF MICHIGAN OFFICE OF BOARD OF STATE TAX COMMISSIONERS, To His Excellency, H. S. Pingree, Governor of Michigan: In compliance with the law, we herewith submit to you the First Annual Report of the Board of State Tax Commissioners. In the preparation of the report, as contemplated by the statute requiring the same, it was deemed best by the members of the Commission to divide the work, and so that each member might also express his views, at least in part, upon the different phases of taxation affairs within the State. FRED M. TWISS, Secretary of the Board of State Tax Commissioners. CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS. FINANCE AND TAXATION. Article XIV, Section 1. All specific State taxes, except those received from the mining companies of the Upper Peninsula, shall be applied in paying the interest upon the primary school, university and other educational funds, and the interest and principal of the State debt, in the order herein recited, until the extinguishment of the State debt, other than the amounts due to educational funds, when such specific taxes shall be added to, and constitute a part of the primary school interest fund. The legislature shall provide for an annual tax, sufficient with other resources, to pay the estimated expenses of the State government, the interest of the State debt, and such deficiency as may occur in the resources. Section 2. The legislature shall provide by law a sinking fund of at least twenty thousand dollars a year, to commence in eighteen hundred and fifty-two, with compound interest at the rate of six per cent per annum and an annual increase of at least five per cent to be applied solely to the payment and extinguishment of the principal of the State debt, other than the amounts due to educational funds, and 53077 |