xiv REPORT or THE COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY.

million dollars then an additional amount at the rate of thirty
dollars for every million dollars of such last-named excess"

From the foregoing you will observe that said companies are
required to pay the tax to the State Treasurer before the first
clay of April in every year and if not paid by the first day of
November following., it becomes obligatory upon the Comp-
troller, under Section 71, to place said bills in the hands of the
Attorney-General for collection by suit, but the statute nowhere
provides any mode by which the Comptroller is advised of the
amount of capital employed by such companies within the State
and only through the courtesy of the Secretary of State in

transmitting such information to this office has the .Comptroller
been enabled to enforce the collection of this tax. In my judg-
ment, this statute should be so amended that at the time of the
filing of their certificates with the Secretary of State they
should be required to also file a like certificate with the Comp-
troller, setting forth the amount of capital employed within
the State, in order that the Comptroller should have in; his own
office proper returns upon which to base the tax. Further, I
deem it important that additional powers be granted to him
whereby he may be able to call for and enforce supplemental
reports, if necessary, in order that the actual amount of capital
so employed be ascertained. As the statute now stands, the
Comptroller is required to collect, this tax without any pro-
vision whatever being made for any returns to his office upon
which this tax is to be based, and as a matter of fact, it is pos-
sible for the largest foreign corporations doing business in this
State with visible property of hundreds of thousands of dollars
to make a return of only five thousand dollars of capital em-
ployed and therefore pay a tax of only twenty-five dollars,
while several large foreign corporations employed in Maryland
return no capital at all.

Again, the statute further provides that this tax of twenty-
five dollars shall be levied upon "every full; fifty "thousand dol-
lars of capital employed by it in this State." Therefore, if the
capital employed be $99,990, the tax is only twenty-five dollars,
or no more than if the capital employed were fifty thousand
dollars. In my judgment, this provision should be so amended
as to read "at the rate of twenty-five dollars for every fifty thou-