Chap. 673.—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.

Approved March 2, 1898.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That section

tiwanty-aight anf chantar two hnndrad and farty-fnonr of an act annroved
March sixth, eighteen hundred and ninety, 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 mixture thereof, in cases
where a court certificate is required, be amended and re-enacted 80 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 thou-
sand 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 dol-
lars. 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 ‘‘capi-
tal’? 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 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 col-
lected. 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 todo so upon the payment fora license upon said
remnant of merchandise, to be regarded for purposes of revenue as pur-
chases. Merchant tailors, lumber merchants, furniture merchants,
butchers, green grocers, huckstere, 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 pay-
ing 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 cor-
poration 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 arti-
cles in or within a half mile of any city or town in the state shall take
out license therefor as herein prescribed: provided, that dealers in coal
and wood in the city of Richmond who peddle the same from vehicles
shall pay an additional tax of fifty dollars for each wagon used.

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