The liability of stockholders is commonly limited to the shares of stock actually held or such portion of them as may not have been paid up by the stockholder in cash or property value. Massachusetts and the more conservative States attempt to provide that the stock shall be actually paid up in money or in property of the real value of money, at par. New Jersey, New York, Maine, West Virginia, and the laxer States, practically allow their directors to issue stock for anything they choose--labor, contracts, property, or a patent right--and their judgment on the value of such property is held to be final in the absence of fraud. Corporations are usually taxed, like individuals, on their tangible, visible property, real and personal, and in many States there is also a franchise tax on their shares.[1] There is a frequent limitation that the corporate indebtedness shall not exceed the amount of the capital stock.[2] No States, except Vermont and New Hampshire, seem now to have any limitation on the amount of the capital stock, or if there be a limitation, as of one million dollars at the time of formation, the corporation may subsequently increase its stock to any amount.[3] Michigan, however, had a limitation of five million dollars as to manufacturing or mercantile corporations, and two million five hundred thousand dollars as to mines; while Alabama and Missouri had a general limit of ten million dollars. The general tendency is clearly to have no limitation whatever. Commonly only a nominal proportion of the capital stock is to be paid in before the company begins business, but the stockholders are always liable to creditors for the amount unpaid. As already remarked, stock may usually be paid up in property, labor, or services, or, indeed, any legal consideration; and though most States provide that such property, etc., shall be taken at its actual cash value, such laws, except in Massachusetts, are not believed to be effectual. [Footnote 1: A valuable report on this subject, brought down to 1903, prepared by F.J. MacLeod, of Massachusetts, will be found in the "Report of the Committee on Corporation Laws," above referred to, at pp. 207-295.] [Footnote 2: MacLeod, pp. 165-166.] [Footnote 3: MacLeod, p. 169.] That stockholders are individually liable to the extent of the unpaid balance on their stock is merely a statutory statement of the ordinary rule in equity. It is, therefore, law without statute. Apparently only Indiana and Kansas now impose a double liability, the law in Ohio having been recently altered by constitutional amendment. In several States, however, they are liable for debts due for labor; in California they are absolutely liable for such proportion of all liabilities of the corporation as their stock bears to the total capital stock, while in Nevada they are expressly exempted from any liability whatever.