CHAP. 708.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 244 of an act
approved March 6, 1890, in relation to licenses.

Approved March 4, 1892.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia,
That section twenty-eight of an act to provide for the as-
sessment of taxes on persons, property and incomes, and
on licenses to transact business, and imposing taxes there-
on for the support of the government and public free
schools, and to pay the interest on the public debt, and
prescribe the mode of obtaining licenses to sell wine, ar-
dent 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. For every license to a merchant or mercantile 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 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 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 actual-
ly 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
goods, wares and merchandise, constituting stock in trade;
all other property held by such merchant or firm shall be
listed and taxed as other property. The sums required b
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, at 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. Mer-
chant 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, ice or fresh meats, 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 license therefor as herein pre-
scribed. So much of this act as authorizes dealers in fresh
meat, who have paid the specific license tax provided for
herein, to peddle the same from vehicles without paying
an additional tax shall not apply to any city nor to any
incorporated town which has a market.
2. This act shall be in force from its passage.