208 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



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in neighboring states from property already taxed there. The single tax 

 on land is commended because it taxes something easy to find, but is 

 condemned because it cannot be easily shifted, and hence the land owner 

 must bear the tax alone. No subject has yet been found that fully bears 

 out the theory of the single taxer. 



SEPARATION OF STATE AND LOCAL TAXES. 



The most widely and plausible urged plan of reform is the separation 

 of State from local taxes. Let the State get its revenue from one source 

 and the townships and counties secure their revenue from a different 

 source, and the chief incentive to illegal valuation of property will disap- 

 pear. No principle of local self-government will suffer from this change, 

 but the State will abandon a clumsy, inefficient method of tax collection 

 for a better one. Specific taxes on corporations, inheritance taxes, and 

 taxes on natural monopolies, are recommended as sources for State rev- 

 enue, while real estate and tangible personal property should be taxed by 

 local governments alone. Michigan has already most of the machinery 

 for this plan in the specific tax laws by which a third of her revenue is at 

 present raised. Pennsylvania uses the plan completely, and is conceded 

 to have the best tax law in the union. Both in theory and in practice, 

 the separation of State from local taxes seems feasible and proper. 



Another reform is effected when the taxing officer is made responsible 

 to the whole district for which tie raises revenue. Even with State taxes 

 eliminated, there would be contentions among townships, and between 

 city wards and country townships, over the distribution of county taxes, 

 unless the taxing officials could be elected for the whole county, or better 

 still, be appointed. County assessing officers are everywhere commended 

 in states where the system prevails, and are fully endorsed both by stu- 

 dents of taxation and practical men. The best recommendation for any 

 tax system is that it can be believed in, and no tax reform is successful 

 that cannot be endorsed by those who pay the taxes. It was formerly 

 said that the best taxing system was one "by which the geese were 

 plucked with the least amount of squaking." The history of taxes 

 shows that they were once the product of force — extorted from unwilling 

 subjects, who developed great ingenuity in avoiding them. The modern 

 idea of taxes is that they are the contributions of citizens for the sup- 

 port of government, according to the ability of each to pay. That, far 

 from being an unmitigated evil always to be shunned, they should be 

 encouraged, promoted, looked upon as a benefit in the same sense that 

 while one man's means would go but a short distance in securing to him 

 the blessings of civilization, the small contributions from manv citizens 

 in the form of taxes will secure th^se blessings to all at a trifling cost to 

 each. In this sense a tax may become one's best paying investment if 

 cheaply, equitably and properly exacted. 



To sum up these statements, our taxing system is defective — 



1. Because it allows personal property to escape taxation. 



2. Because it encourages illegal valuation of property. 



3. Because it promotes dishonesty. 



The most feasible remedy suggested is to separate State from local 

 taxes, and to make the taxing officials elective county officers, or still 

 better, appointed ones. 



