The scope of this tax remained what it had always been, and it is described in article 8, section 1, of the Constitution of 1876 to be as follows: "All property in this state owned by natural persons or corporations, other than municipal, shall be taxed in proportion to its value, which shall be ascertained as may be provided by law." The constitution exempted from taxation household and kitchen furniture to the value of $250 to each family,1 and empowered the legislature to exempt property used for burial, religious, charitable, educational, and public purposes, and to release from the payment of state and county taxes the inhabitants of counties, cities and towns which suffer a public calamity.2

The act of August 21, 1876, carried out these constitutional permissions.3 It also exempted state pensions, growing crops, notes taken for land, the shares of stock of domestic corporations whose property was taxed by the state, and it provided that only the excess of credits over debits was taxable. The exemption extended to land notes, or mortgages, was repealed in 1879.4 In 1873 there were exempted from taxes the residents of the frontier counties of Montague, Wise, Parker, Hood, Erath, Hamilton, Lampasas, Burnet, Blanco, Kendall. Bandera, Medina, Frio, McMullen, Duval, Starr, and all other counties lying west and southwest of these. This exemption was repealed in 1875.5 The act adjudicating the controversy between the state and the International Railroad exempted the property of this company from state and other taxes for twenty-five years.6

Until 1870 the work of the assessment and collection of the general property tax was confided to one officer - known as the assessor and collecteor - in each county. The Constitution of 1869 changed this system and provided that the justice of the peace, of whom there were five in each county, should be the assessor of the taxes in his precinct and that the sheriff should be the collector. This system worked badly: it was uneentralked, expensive, and inefficient. Each justice was paid 5 per cent of the assessed taxes until his commission reached $1,000, the result of which was that after each one had assessed $20,000 of taxes, he stopped assessing through lack of inducement to additional work.1 An amendment to the constitution was proposed and adopted in 1873 which called for a return to the old system of one assessing and collecting officer, and in 1875 this was enacted into law.2 This officer was to assess and collect both state and county taxes, was to be elected for four years and was to be paid by fees graduated to the assessed values but with no maximum prescribed. This system was short lived, however, since the Constitution of 1876 ordered a different one. The one laid down in 1876 is the one now in use. It was then provided that for each organized county there should be an assessor of taxes, and in counties having 10,000 or more inhabitants a collector of taxes, each elected to hold office for two years; that in counties having less than 10,000 population the sheriff should be the ex-officio collector.3 The Constitution of 1876 also provided that the taxes on the property of residents of an unorganized county should be assessed and collected by the assessor and collector of the county to which it was attached for judicial purposes, though the taxes on lands in such counties owned by non-residents and lands lying in the territory not laid off into counties should be assessed and collected at the office of the comptroller.4

1 The amount exempted under the act of May 2, 1874, was $50.

2 Article 8, secs. 2 and 10; article 9, sec. 9.

3 Laws of 1876, p. 275.

4 Laws of 1879, p. 39.

5 Laws of 1875, p. 10.

6 Act of March 10, 1875; Special Laws of 1875, p. 69.

The policy adopted in 1875 of fixing no limit to the compensation which the assessor and the collector might receive was followed throughout this period. The assessor received 5 per cent on the amount of the state taxes assessed and 3 per cent on the amount of county taxes assessed, and the collector received liked percentages on the amounts collected. In view of these wide-open limits there was no criticism, such as was urged in the preceding period, that the policy as to compensation failed to make the interests of the officers identical with those of the state. There was also no criticism that this policy resulted in excessive compensation to some officers.

1 Message of Governor Coke, January 12, 1875. The comptroller's report for 1874 states that the city assessments for Galveston exceeded the state and county assessment for the whole county by $8,528,424.

2 Laws of 1874, p. 234. Laws of 1875, p. 92.

3 Art. 8, secs. 14 and 16. Acts of August 21, 1876; Laws of 1876, pp. 255, 259.

4 Art. 8, sec. 12. Such provision bears witness to the frontier character of a large part of western Texas. In 1876 there were 152 organized counties and 21 unorganized. Comptroller's Report, 1876, p. 67.

The laws in regard to the place of assessment and collection of taxes are important in their bearing upon the operation of the general property tax. Under the Constitution of 1869 and the legislation thereunder real property could be rendered and the taxes thereon paid either in the county where the property was located or in the county where the owner or agent resided; personal property was assessable where the owner or agent resided.1 The alternatives here offered opened the way for property to escape assessment, but the poor facilities which existed in the state at this time for making remittances and for transmitting intelligence made rather liberal provisions necessary. The Constitution of 1876 laid down the rule that: "All property, whether owned by persons or corporations, shall be assessed for taxation and the taxes paid in the county where situated, but the legislature may, by a two-thirds vote, authorize the payment of taxes of non-residents of counties to be made at the office of the comptroller of public accounts."2 The laws carrying out these provisions, with the exception of unorganized counties, were clear as to the place of taxation of real property, but not as to the place of taxation of personal property, and it remained for the courts to decide that tangible personalty was, like real property, taxable where located; intangible personalty, where the owner resided.3 At first only the lands in unorganized counties and territory and the property of railroad, telegraph, plank road and turnpike companies in unorganized counties were assessed and the taxes collected by the comptroller; but on account of complaints of the hardship of the requirement that non-residents of organized counties should pay only to the collectors of such counties, the law was changed so as to permit payment to the comptroller.1

1 Laws of 1873, p. 124. Laws of 1874, p. 176.

2 Art. 8, sec. 11. The provision relating to unorganized counties has been stated.

3 Ferris v. Kimble, 75 Tex., 476 (1889). Intangible personalty - for example, purchase money notes, which has acquired a situs in the state is taxable though owned by a non-resident; Hall v. Miller, 102 Tex., 289 (1909). See also Jesse French Piano and Organ Co. v. City of Dallas, 61 S. W. Rep., 942 (1901).