cently made some changes that may be of interest as affecting foreign capital. The following are monthly quotas, minimum and maximum respectively: Shipping Agencies Stevedores Agencies $5 to $300 $3 to $100 $2 to $100 Wholesale buyers and warehousemen for export exclu sively of coffee, vanilla, tobacco...... Mining companies, quarries, etc...... $20 to $ 40 Companies in the business of petroleum drilling, as also those in the business of exploitation of petroleum wells, whether productive or not. $500 to $15,000 $50 to $500 $100 to $500 $5 to $500 $5 to $1,000 $5 to $500 Agencies for sale of refined petroleum and products of petroleum..... Street railway companies Cold storage, meat, fish, etc., and packing houses Light and power companies. Breweries Cigar and Cigarette factories. Petroleum Refineries Banking Concerns, money lenders etc. Companies for service of drinking water, from $5 to $250 $5 to $1,000 $25 to $300 $5 to $1,000 $5 to $2,500 $2 to $500 $500 to $5,000 $5 to $500 about seven to twelve and a half per cent of the company's When the charge for the water service does not exceed $1.50 a month for 500 liters in 24 hours, the tax is 5 cents for each 500 liters; when the charge exceeds $1.50, the tax is 10 cents; and when it exceeds $2.00 per month for 500 liters, the tax is 25 cents per month. The tax on oil refineries is payable for the entire year without reference to the time of operation of the refineries during that period. Spinning and weaving factories of cotton and other textile or filamentous material, pay a license or patent tax of seventy cents per spindle per annum. PRODUCTS OF THE SOIL This division is not one officially made by any state, but it is intended to include the taxes on indigenous products or products natural to the soil which were originally neither sown nor cultivated. This includes forests, broom-root (or Zacatón as it is also known commercially), gums (including chicle); other fibers, such as ixtle and henequen (originally indigenous, but now cultivated), dyewoods, etc. Chicle and henequen, or Sisal Fibre as it is also known, are the chief items of importance at present. The Campeche law taxes the former $2.50 per 46 kilos-(100 lbs.), when the price current does not exceed $60.00; fifty cents. per 46 K. is added to the tax for each $20.00, or fraction of that sum, in excess of the price cited. Henequen, or Sisal Fibre, by the law of Oct. 3, 1922, pays 6 per cent of its value when produced in the state. The Law of March 20, 1922, which provides for the regulation of the price is of interest, and follows in full. "The XXVII Congress of the Free and Sovereign State of Campeche decrees: (Number 53) "Art 1. In order to meet the expenses of the State Commission for the Regulation of the Henequen Market, caused by the over supplying of the stock of the fibre in the United States of North America, purchased by the Export Commission of Yucatan, a tax is imposed upon unmanufactured henequen of FOUR CENTS NATIONAL GOLD PER KILOGRAM, which must be paid by such persons or commercial houses as have such henequen in their possession. This henequen may not be exported until a receipt shall have been exhibited showing that the above mentioned tax has been paid. "Art. 2. The said tax shall be collected by the General Treasury of the State, which shall weekly deliver the product of such tax to the State Commission for the Regulation of the Henequen Market. "Art. 3. The General Treasury of the State shall be endowed with full coercive faculties especially provided for the collection of any taxes on henequen. "Art. 4. Since the object of the tax provided for by this Law is to provide funds for the State Commission for the Regulation of the Henequen Market, all henequen which is transferred through any kind of title to the said Institution is exempt from this tax. "This Law goes into effect on the day of its promulgation." In this connection, it is also of interest to give the Law of January 7, 1922, enacted by the Campeche State Government. Strictly speaking, this is not a Tax Law, but it bears upon the subject since it reduces the amount of the taxes to be collected. The tax on land continues the same, notwithstanding the operation of this law. The text of the law (Number 40) is as follows: Art. 1. The Henequen Industry in the State-its exploitation and production-is declared to be of public interest, remaining under official safeguard. Art. 2. The annual production of henequen in the state is reduced according to the following basis: A reduction to the planter producing 115,001 to 230,000 kilos of 15% of his production. To the producer of 230,001 to 345,000 kilos 30% Art. 3. The Executive of the State will regulate the present Law, adopting the means and provisions most efficacious for the faithful and exact compliance with it. Art. 4. This Law will cease to be in force when the stock of unmanufactured henequen now in the United States of North America shall have disappeared, reestablishing the economic law of Supply and Demand. "This Law goes into effect on the day of its promulgation." Campeche, Jan. 7, 1922. This is the only legislation designed to affect the market for products, although some taxes are dependent upon their value in this or foreign markets, and vary accordingly in a scale fixed by the law. LIVESTOCK In some states this is one of the most productive sources of revenue or was before the revolution. In Oaxaca the present tax is usually paid when the stock is moved. It is supposed to be imposed on all stock from branding age upwards, and is $5.00 per head. The cattle cannot be moved without a receipt showing the payment of the tax. As the tax payers are not always able to make the payment, and as it is difficult to enforce the payment without rounding up the stock, which in that region is difficult, the stock buyers make the payment when receiving a herd. This tax is the same for horses or mules as for cattle. For hogs the tax is $1.00 per head; and for goats and sheep it is 50 cents per head. One should, moreover, always take into account that on all taxes levied by states and towns there is the Federal Surtax of 25% to be added. In the Federal District itself the tax on dairy animals is a fruitful source of revenue. The rate is 60 cents for each milch cow every two months or $3.60 per year. As to livestock, it must also be remembered that in some cases it is taxed as real estate, being valued in the assessments of realty in many states. Then, if sold separately, it is also taxed additionally under the regular tax on sales. In Chihuahua, it has already been noted as included in the tax on capital. As to the sales tax, it may be noted that it is now a comparatively new impost, though it constitutes an echo of the old Internal Revenue Federal Stamp tax of more than thirty years' standing on commercial operations, in which all invoices had to carry stamps proportioned to the amount of the sale. The final tax on livestock is the slaughter tax in the states or municipalities, usually amounting to three pesos per head for beeves, with a smaller amount for hogs, and still less for sheep and goats. These carcasses are then sold by the slaughterer to the retail butcher by an invoice which has to carry the Federal stamps. The local tax on the sales in most of the states is also added, and on top of that comes the regular federal surtax of 25%, already described. The local butcher or retailer has to pay his patent or license tax, with the Federal Surtax of 25%, and if his customers have a charge account, his periodical statement of account carries the regular invoice stamps of the Federal Tax, which winds up the finale of the fiscal part of the livestock element in the citizen's daily life. TAX ON PROFITABLE OCCUPATIONS A fair average of these charges in the states is the following list of the tariff in the Federal District, giving the monthly quotas: Lawyers, doctors and notaries.. Dentists $5.00 to $50.00 2.00 to 50.00 erinary surgeons 1.00 to 10.00 Accountants, building superintendents and vet In some states all professions are classed with brokers, dentists, and other occupations not of the learned professions. The Campeche classification is especially unusual, and is given as of interest to anyone curious about Mexico and the new regime. It runs as follows: The Public Register exacts a varying fee for the inscription of professional titles, permitting the owner of such to practice his profession in the state where his title is registered. The fee is nearly always larger where a non-native of the state is concerned. than where a son of the state presents his title. The legalization of signatures for use in documents outside the state is usually done by the executive and costs from $3.00 to $7.50. The registration fees vary with the states. In some states they are based on the values involved in the deed, contract or other document recorded. Where no value is mentioned in the document in the case of a document that does not require thisthe charge is based on the length of the document, i.e. the number of pages recorded. In some states the rate increases with the amount; while in others the rate diminishes as the amount involved increases. The former is the case in Michoacan, the latter in Aguascalientes. MISCELLANEOUS AND SPECIAL TAXES While the mining tax in the states has hitherto been a principal one, involving a tax on the realty of the mining property, including the value of the plant, machinery and the land occupied, there have been, and still are, on the books of many states, laws levying a tax on reduction works, metallurgical establishments, etc. As a matter of fact, however, these laws conflict with a decree of the Federal government which is given in full as being of interest to investors in Mexican mines. "The states cannot tax mining property, or the exploitation or production of mines with more than a single tax which may not exceed two per cent of the metals or minerals produced. "The states are therefore absolutely prohibited from imposing any other tax, whatever may be the name given it, upon the extraction, production, reduction, or profit of mines, of reduction works, metallurgical establishments, of whatever kind they may be-including coking plants-upon capital invested in them, mining shares or titles, and transfer of titles to mining properties or to metallurgical establishments, denouncements, possessions, organization of mining or metallurgical companies, issuance of mining titles or shares or operations relating to them, and other proceedings necessary to the establishment, acquisition or exploiting of mining or metallurgical properties." (Law of December 7, 1921.) Where, in some cases, states have published in their budgets laws in conflict with this decree, collections have been made of concerns which were ignorant of the decree. But where resistance has been made by companies to the payment of more than the sole tax of two per cent of their output, no collection has been made. In fact a recent attempt by the authorities of a citywhere a company had its central office, in which the general accounts of the various properties were kept-to collect a tax on the capital as license or patent tax, was resisted successfully. For this reason no more space is given to the state mining taxes |