Chap. 161.—.An ACT to amend and re-enact the fourteenth, twentieth,
forty-fourth and fifty-sixth sections of an.act entitled an act prescrib-
ing general provisions in relation to commissioners of the revenue,
and the assessment of taxes on persons, property, income, licenses, &c.,
approved March sixteenth, eighteen hundred and seventy-five.

Approved March 27, 1876.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly, That the four-
teenth, twentieth, forty-fourth and fifty-sixth sections of an
act entitled an act prescribing general provigions in relation
to commissioners of the revenue and the assessment of taxes
on persons, property, income, licenses, &c., approved March
sixteenth, eighteen hundred and seventy-five, be amended
and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

§14. All the real estate, except such as may be exempted
by the next succeeding section, shall be subject to such
annual taxation as may be prescribed by law, and a lien shall
exist on such real estate for the payment of the taxes and
levies imposed thereon;-and there shall also be a further lien
upon the rent of said real estate, whetuer the same be in
money or in kind, for the taxes of the current year. The
value of lands and lots, as ascertained in pursuance of the act
of the general assembly, approved March thirty-first, eigh-
teen hundred and seventy-five, providing for the reassessment
of the lands throughout the commonwealth, and the ascer-
tained value of new grants which may hereafter be entered
and assessed, shall be permanent, and shall not be changed,
except to allow the addition of the value of improvements,
or a total or partial deduction of the value of such improve-
ments?

§ 20. If any estate of a decedent shall, under his will or by
descent, pass to any person other than his lineal descendants,
or to his father, mother, husband, wife, or sister, or to or for
their use, the clerk of the court in which the will is recorded,
and the clerk of the court of the county or corporation in
which such estate is situated, or in which the persons, or any
of them, taking the same, reside, upon ascertaining the fact,
shall report the same to proper commissioner of the revenue,
and the judge of the court of probate shall examine the will,
and inform the clerk as to such estate, if any such there be,
liable to taxation under this section. On such estate the
commissioner shall, in addition to the annual tax, charge a
specific tax to the person or persons taking under the will,
or by descent as aforesaid.

§ 44. The commissioner, in assessing the value of machinery
and other fixtures to real estate in manufacturing or other
Similar establishments, shall ascertain the value of all such
machinery and fixtures attached thereto, and include the ag-
gregate value thereof, as improvements on real estate, in the
same manner and to the same effect as in the Gase of build-
ings and enclosures added to real estate, under the provisions
of this act: provided however, that if the machinery and
other fixtures aforesaid, shall be the property of one person,
and the real estate in or upon which the said macBinery, and
so forth, shall be used, be the property of another, the said
machinery shall be assesse1 and taxed against the owner
thereof as personal property, and so listed by the commis-
sioner of the revenue: provided further, that if the machinery
and fixtures aforesaid shall be used in the business of mining
or manufacturing, according to the thirty-first section of this
act, the machinery so used shall be assessed and taxed as the
property of the person owning the mineral title. For any
failure, on the pgrt of the commissioner, to comply with this
or any of the four next preceding sections, he shall ROT He
fifty dollars for each failure.

§ 56. If any person shal! refuse to exhibit to the commis-
sioner any property listed, or required by this act to be listed
by him, in order that a fair valuation thereof may be assessed,
be shall pay a fine of not less tban twenty nor more than
one hundred dollars. No commissioner shall receive any list
as a sufficient return of personal property, unless the same
be sworn to according to law, under a penalty of five bun-
dred dollars and removal from office. ‘This section shall be
given in special charge to the grand juries by the courts of
the commonwealth.

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