tion Bill that permits the shifting of employee from one
Department to another, when one Department might be
particularly busy and the other not in its busy season.

Your attention is called to the fact that this office carries
on its books accounts for taxes due by corporations out of busi-
ness for some time, but these accounts cannot be eliminated
from our books except by forfeiting the charters of such cor-
porations for non-payment of taxes. As an illustration, a
corporation is chartered in the early part of the year 1923,
and before the end of that year becomes insolvent and ceases
business without any formality as to dissolution. An assess-
ment is made about the middle of 1924 for taxes as of Janu-
ary 1st, 1924, (sometimes a year after the corporation has be-
come non-existent.) We must, charge the Company with 1924
taxes and also 1925 and 1926 taxes, because under the laws in
effect at this time, we cannot take steps to forfeit the charters
of such corporations until after January 1st, 1927, or nearly
four years after it was incorporated. We recommend that the
law in this case be changed so that the Comptroller shall
certify to the Governor, on or after January 1st of each year,
the names of corporations which have not paid taxes assessed
for the previous calendar year. This change would not only
remove "dead wood" from our books and save the State Tax
Commission and our office useless labor, but it would insure
the prompt payment of taxes by operating corporations.

A suggestion that has been made in the past, in fact made
before the reorganization of State Departments was contem-
plated, is much in order now. and I recommend that it be
given consideration. It has to do with supervising the pur-
chase of supplies for the State, to require the approval of pro-
posed expenditures before the State is obligated for them—in
other words, to have one of the executive officers of the State
pass upon the necessity of the proposed expenditures and limit
expenditures to supplies, etc., necessary to the proper opera-
tion of institutions, departments, etc. This supervision would
have no bearing on the workings of the Central Purchasing
Bureau and would not apply to usual expenditures, but only
to what might be termed unusual expenditures. It would not
interfere with construction authorized by bond issues, except
that the funds provided by bond issues would be used only for
the work outlined in the law. At the present time the State
Comptroller's authority does not extend beyond seeing that
the amount appropriated is not exceeded and that vouchers
for expenditures be submitted to him as evidence that the State
has been obligated for the payment of the appropriations.