REPORT.

State of Michigan,

Office of Board of State Tax Commissioners,

Lansing, December 15, 1904.

To His Excellency, A. T. Bliss, Governor of Michigan:

In compliance with the law, we herewith submit to you the third report of the Board of State Tax Commissioners covering their work for the years 1903 and 1904.

F. O. GULLIFER,

Secretary.

TAX LAWS.

The report by this Commission, published in 1901, contains a discus sion of the tax laws of this and other states, and so full an account of the workings of the Commission that it is not deemed necessary or advisable to go over the ground again; except in a brief way, confining ourselves principally to the operations of the Commission in its efforts to carry out the law during the years 1903 and 1904.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS.

Finance and Taxation.

Article XIV, Section 1. All specific State taxes, except those received from the mining companies of the Upper Peninsula, shall be applied in paying the interest upon the primary school, university and other educational funds, and the interest and principal of the State debt, in the order herein recited, until the extinguishment of the State debt, other than the amounts due to educational funds, when such specific taxes shall be added to, and constitute a part of the primary school interest fund. The legislature shall provide for an annual tax, sufficient with other resources, to pay the estimated expenses of the State government, the interest of the State debt, and such deficiency as may occur in the resources.

Section 2. The legislature shall provide by law a sinking fund of at least twenty thousand dollars a year, to commence in eighteen hundred and fifty-two, with compound interest at the rate of six per cent

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