Chap. 702.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 25 of an act entitled ‘An act
to provide for the assessment of taxes on persons, property and income, and on
licenses to transact business, and imposing taxes thereon for the support of gov-
ernment 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

iquors, or any mixture thereof, in cases where a court certificate 1s required,”’
approved March 6, 1890.

Approved March 3, 1898,

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That section
twenty-five of the act entitled ‘‘An act to provide for the assessment of
taxes on persons and property and incomes, and on licenses to transact
business, and imposing taxes thereon for the support of government and
public free schools, and to pay the interest on the public debt, and pre-
scribing the mode of obtaining licenses to sell wine, ardent spirits, malt
liquors, or any mixture thereof, in cases where a court certificate is
required,’? approved March sixth, eighteen hundred and ninety, be
amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

$25. Tax on telegraph and telephone companies.—On the real and
person property of telegraph and telephone companies, there shall be a

tax of thirty cents on every hundred dollars of the assessed value thereof,
the proceeds of which shall be applied to the support of the government,
and a further tax of ten cents on every hundred dollars’ worth of the
assessed value thereof shall be applied to the support of the public free
schools of the state. No telegraph or telephone company, nor any agent
nor officer of such company, nor any person opcrating the apparatus
necessary to communicate by telegraph or telephone, shall transmit any
message or communication over the wires of such company, firm, or per-
son, without a license authorized by law. If the business be conducted
by an incorporated company, the license shall be to the company, which
company may employ agents without a license being required of such
agents. If the business be conducted by any person, firm, or company
not incorporated, the license shall issue to such person, firm, or com-
pany. When a license shall have issued, messages or communications
may be transmitted through any county or corporation of this state.
One license for the same company shall be sufficient; and this section
shall not be construed to require a license for each office of the same
company. <Any person violating the provisions of this section shall pay
a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than four hundred
dollars for each offence. The amount to be paid by any telegraph agent
or officer thereof for the privilege of operating for compensation the ap-
paratus necessary to communicate by telegraph shall be one thousand
dollars, and an additional charge of one per centum of the gross earn-
Ings the company received, or due though not received, from their busi-
ness in this state during the year preceding: provided that the sum of
one thousand dollars shall not be required of companies whose gross
receipts are less than one thousand dollars. There shall be a specific
license tax to be paid by every corporation, person or association, for
the privilege of operating the apparatus necessary to communicate by
telephone, which tax shall be upon each of the said telephone instru-
ments owned, used or operated by said corporation, person or associa-
tion, or any of their subscribers, as follows:

If the number of such telephones be six hundred or less, then the tax
shall be fifty cents upon each of said telephones; if it be more than six
hundred but not exceeding one thousand, then the tax shall be seventy-
five cents upon each of said telephones; and if it be more than one thou-
sand and less than two thousand, then the tax shall be one dollar upon
each of said telephones; and if it be more than two thousand, then the
tax shall be one dollar and fifty cents upon each of said telephones.
Such sums, if the same be not paid within sixty days, shall be collected
by any treasurer to whom the auditor may deliver the assessment for
collection. The treasurer may distrain and sell any property of such
company, and shall pay the taxes into the treasury within sixty days
after such assessment shall have been delivered to him.

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