Chap. 796.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 28, as heretofore amended,
of an act entitled an act to provide for the assessment of taxes on persons,
property and incomes, 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 obtaining licenses to sell wines, ardent spirits, malt liquors, or any
mixtures thereof, in cases where a court certificate is required, approved
March 6, 1890, in relation to merchants’ licenses and tax on capital stock
of corporations doing the business of a merchant.

Approved March 6, 1900.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That section
twenty-eight, as heretofore amended, of an act entitled an act to provide
for the assessment of taxes on persons, property, and incomes, 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 obtaining licenses to sell wine,
ardent spirits, malt liquors, or any mixtures thereof, in cases where a
court certificate 1s required, approved March sixth, eighteen hundred and
ninety, be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

§ 25. For every license to a merchant or mercantile firm the amount
to be paid shall be graduated as follows: If the amount of purchase shall
not exceed one thousand dollars, the amount shall be five dollars. When
purchases exceed one thousand dollars but do not exceed two thou-
sand 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 hun-
dred doljlars 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 pur-
poses on the capital actually employed by said merchant or mercantile
firm in said business: provided, that the capital stock and shares of stock
of corporations engaged in the business of a merchant shall not be taxed
in any case for state purposes where the said corporation pays a license
tax under this section which shall amount to as much as, or more than,
the tax on said capital stock would be under the tax laws of this state.
The word “capital” shall include only the actual amount invested by
such merchant or mercantile firm in goods, wares, and merchandise con-
stituting stock in trade; all other property 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 whatever 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 merchants,
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 corpora-
tion to buy lamhs, 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
license therefor as hereinbefore prescribed: provided, that dealers in
coal and wood in the city of Richmond who peddle the same from
vehicles shall pav an additional tax of fifty dollars for each wagon used.

2. This act shall be in force from its passage.