Wealth, Debt and Taxation.— Massachu setts is one of the wealthiest States of the Union. Much of the capital of its citizens is invested in enterprises out of the State. The value of real estate as fixed by the assessors of the various cities and towns for purposes of taxation was for the year 1918, $3,884,193,442. The total personal estate returned from the same sources was $8.50,260,497, bringing the aggregate to $4,734,453,939, and even this is probably an underestimate.
The aggregated tax levy for State, county and municipal purposes, for the year covered by the latest report, amounts to $95,138,742. Of this $2,087,046 is a poll tax assessed under a provision of law requiring the payment of such a tax, limited to $2 per capita, by every male inhabitant of the Commonwealth above the age of 20 years, whether a citizen of the United States or an alien. The rate of local taxation in the different cities and towns, per $1,000 of valuation, real and personal, varies from $2.50 to $42; rates from $2.50 to $9.80 being assessed in 11 towns; $10 to $14.60 in 52 towns; $15 to $19.80 in 6 cities and 122 towns; $20 to $24.70 in 26 cities and 107 towns; and $25 to $42 in 6 cities and 24 towns.
Under the tax system of the State real estate is taxed to the owner wherever re siding, the tax being payable in the city or town where the estate is located. Taxes on tangible personal property are payable in the city or town where the holder resides, but a new statute in operation since 1917 taxes the in come only of intangible personalty, and also income in excess of $2,000 from business, trade or profession, through the office of the State commissioner of taxation, the proceeds being distributed to the municipalities wherein the person taxed resides. Sworn returns are re quired under penalty.
Corporations are subject to a tax upon their capital stock, assessed and payable through the office of the State commissioner of taxation, the proceeds being distributed to the municipal ities wherein the stockholders reside, in pro portion to the amount of shares held by them respectively. Shares in such corporations are therefore exempted from local taxation. Real estate and tangible personal property in general is, on the other hand, subject entirely to local assessment, and, theoretically, at its full value Property held solely for religious, charitable or educational purposes is exempt from taxa tion.
The State's bonded debt, less the amount of sinking fund applicable to its reduction, con tracted for State purposes only, namely, loans for the construction of hospitals and other pub lic buildings, the abolition of railway grade crossings, unpaid remainders of war debt. etc_
amounted to $32,058,102 as reported 30 Nov. 1918. The Commonwealth carries temporarily an indirect indebtedness which, less sinking fund accumulation, amounted at the same date to $53,001,804, this representing loans contracted for the benefit of certain municinalities and metropolitan districts, within which the credit of the State was pledged to aid the develop_ ment of parks, water systems, sewerage con struction and armory construction, the corn manities benefited being assessed annually for the payment of interest, and finally for the payment of the principal. The net debt of the State, direct and contingent, was then $85, 059,906, although, as will be seen, the larger pan of this was contingent municipal indebted by the State credit.
s.— The report of the Comptroller of the Currency to September 1916 reports the number of national banks in the State as 155; 12 being in Boston. The total capital of the national banks in the State was $52,143,000, with $40,361,000 surplus, $707, 823,000 total assets and $432,333,000 deposits. The total capital of the Boston national banks was $25,300,000, the surplus $23,950,000 and the deposits $199,095,000. This is a leading "re serve city.) Trust companies doing a banking business in the State numbered 91, with $30, 575,000 aggregate capital and $436,031,581 in deposits.
The banks for savings are governed by a carefully guarded statute, and these institutions as well as co-operative banks (co-operative savings and loan associations) and trust com panies are under the supervision of the State commissioner of savings banks. The savings banks, at the close of the year covered by the latest published return (1917), numbered 196, the number of deposit accounts being 2,491,646; the amount of deposits, $1,022,342,583; the in crease over the previous year being $24,647,765. The average amount to each account was $410.31, the deposits amounting on the average to about $263 to each person of the population. The savings banks throughout the State have been managed conservatively and very few losses have occurred; but the expense of management is remarkably low, the percentage of expense to total assets being but 287. The co-operative savings banks, which are really building asso ciations, receiving deposits from their members in regular monthly payments, accumulating in terest thereon, and loaning the amounts re ceived to members only, principally upon first mortgages on real estate, have been uniformly successful and numbered (in 1917) 184, the shareholders numbering 247,725 and the assets amounting to $126,695,037.