on under this plan exceeds that under the general
property tax.

By the overlapping of these laws, so contradictory in principle, it
may happen that securities held by taxpayers residing in other states
than those of the issue are taxable two or three or more times; but
few if any loans of this kind are made except by those evading all
taxation.

Sec. 5. #A consistent policy of wealth taxation.# These exceptions
still leave the law in its general principles as to the taxation of
intangible property illogical and unjust. A solution can be found only
by abandoning the ambiguous legal concept of property, and making use
of economic concepts. A consistent tax law might take either wealth
or capital as the basis of assessment, but not sometimes the one and
sometimes the other. Wealth is an impersonal basis of taxation;
each piece of wealth might be taxed once as a unit no matter how the
ownership were divided. Or the other alternative might be chosen.
Capital would be a personal basis of taxation; each person's capital
might be taxed no matter from what sources the incomes were derived
(the concrete wealth, of course, then being left untaxed).

The wealth basis is much nearer to the present general property tax as
actually administered. The assessment of general tangible wealth
would undoubtedly be more easily done than would that of individual
capitals, and likewise be both easier and juster than the present
inconsistent policy. Tangible things are comparatively easy to find,
measure, and evaluate where they are, and if they are all taxed it is
evidently the same as if all the capital values based upon them were
taxed in the owners' hands. The various equitable claims of different
owners in one source of income could be left to adjust themselves
through shifting, mainly in the choice of investments, once the plan
had become generally applied.

Sec. 6. #Needed reform of assessment.# The assessment of the present
general property tax is notoriously inefficient and unjust. The root
of most of the present evils (other than those above discussed) is the
method of local election of assessors, which usually is by townships,
but in some cases by counties. The local assessor's estimate of value
is used as a basis for taxation not only for his district but for the
larger units (county and state). Thus every local assessor is tempted
by the conflict of interests not only among the taxpayers in the
district which elects him, but b