Chap. 739.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 28 of chapter 244 of an act
approved March 6, 1890, imposing a tax on peddlers of coal and wood in the
city of Richmond and Henrico county.

Approved March 4, 1896.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That sec-
tion twenty-eight of chapter two hundred and forty-four of an act
approved March sixth, eighteen hundred and ninety, entitled an act
to provide for the assesament of taxes on persons, property, and in-
comes, and on licenses to transact business, and imposing taxes thereon
for the support of the government and public free schools and to pay
the interest on the public debt, and prescribing the mode of obtain-
ing licenses to sell wine, ardent spirits, malt liquors, or any mixture
thereof, in cases where a court certificate is required, be amended
and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

§ 28. Merchant’s license.—For every license to a merchant or mer-
cantile firm the amount to be paid shall] be graduated as follows: If
the amount of purchases shall not exceed one thousand dollars, the
amount shall be five dollars. When purchases exceed one thousand
dollars but do not exceed two thousand dollars, the amount shall be
ten dollars; and for all purchases over two thousand dollars and less
than fifty thousand dollars, there shall be paid thirty cents on the
one hundred dollars; and upon all the purchases over fifty thousand
dollars there shall be paid ten cents on every hundred dollars in
excess of fifty thousand dollars. The sums imposed under and by
virtue of this section shall be in lieu of all taxes for state purposes
on the capital actually employed by said merchant or mercantile
firm in said business. The word “capital” shall include only the
actual amount invested by such merchant or mercantile firm in gooda,
wares, and merchandise constituting stock in trade; all other pro-
perty held by such merchant or firm shall be listed and taxed as
other property. The sums required by this section to be paid when
the license is taken out shall be collected in the same manner that
the amounts required to be paid for other licenses are collected. If,
after the close of the year for which his license issued, the merchant
should elect not to renew it, but desires the privilege to sell what-
ever remnant of purchases he may have on hand at the time, it may
be lawful for him to do so upon the payment for a license upon said
remnant of merchandise, to be regarded for purposes of revenue as
purchases. Merchant tailors, lumber merchants, furniture mer-
chants, butchers, green grocers, hucksters, dealers in coal, ice, or wood
shall be embraced in this section; but dealers in coal, wood, or ice
paying license tax under this section may peddle the same from
vehicles without paying additional tax. But nothing in this section
shall be so construed as to require a license of any person who may
canvass any county or corporation to buy lambs, pigs, calves, fowls,
eggs, butter, and such like small matters of subsistence designed as
food for man, but any person who shall! keep a place of business for
the purpose of selling such articles in or within a half mile of any
city or town in the state shall take out a license therefor as herein
prescribed; provided that dealers in coal and wood in the city of
Richmond and Henrico county who peddle the same from vehicles
shall pay an additional tax of fifty dollars.
2. This act shail be in force from its passage.