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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



August, 1908 



Monthly Comment 



>HE flail of the tax assessor has now been 

 wielded in the country for several months 

 past, and a mighty cry and wail has gone 

 up because thereof. The operations of this 

 gentleman are seldom heard of from the 

 disinterested and patriotic gentry who are 

 unselfishly promoting the sale of rural real 

 estate for the purchaser's benefit. The text books on rural 

 life are equally silent on this most important personage. He 

 is, in short, seldom heard of until he begins asking questions 

 or the tax assessment is levied. Then things begin to be 

 doing. Presently they get warm; very soon they are hot; 

 almost immediately they are boiling. Then comes a sicken- 

 ing realization that nothing can be done and that the bills 

 must be paid. It is very terrible and very disconcerting. 



So long as taxes are to be paid, just so long, no doubt, 

 there will be dissatisfaction with methods and amounts. It 

 always has been so, and doubtless always will be so. It is 

 impossible to develop a system of taxation that will not have 

 its opponents, and with which more or less fault will not be 

 found. There can be no hope in trying to find a solution that 

 will give universal satisfaction, for human nature is such that 

 general satisfaction can not be looked for in so difficult and 

 intricate a matter. The thing to be done, then, is not to 

 look for a method of universal satisfaction, but to ease and 

 relieve the method of making assessments, and to determine a 

 fair and equitable amount of tax to be paid. Much legisla- 

 tion has been devoted to both these ends, but that no real 

 success has been attained is established by the very general 

 dissatisfaction that prevails on the matter of taxation. 



The problem is hindered and complicated in many differ- 

 ent ways. That there is a deep-rooted and general dis- 

 satisfaction with taxes, with all taxes, with any taxes, and 

 especially with one's own personal taxes, appears to be in- 

 disputably true. However it may be in other countries, 

 Americans, as a rule, do not appear to regard the payment 

 of taxes as, in any sense, a patriotic duty. As a matter of 

 fact, this is precisely what it is, and the payment of taxes 

 should be regarded as a patriotic contribution to the expense 

 of that government of which we are so proud, and which we 

 fondly exhibit to the world at large as the finest model of 

 government the world has seen since the beginning of time. 



No business of any kind can be transacted without money; 

 human life itself can not be supported without earning power, 

 which is expressed in money. And what is true of life and 

 business is equally true of government. No matter how it is 

 obtained, money paid for governmental purposes or to the 

 government is a tax. It is a payment that everyone should 

 make and which everyone should be glad to make. Every- 

 one does not pay taxes in America ; the fellow citizen who 

 owns property does; the fellow citizen who owns nothing 

 does not. The citizenship of one is quite as good as the 

 citizenship of the other: and it is possible that because of this 

 very many excellent citizens devote a great deal of time and 

 energy to escape the payment of taxes, or at least to reduce 

 them to so small an amount as to make them barely visible. 



It is to prevent this avoidance of the payment of the 

 proper tax that the rural tax assessor has his being. To 

 many persons he is highly obnoxious, because he can, if he 

 will, ask the most dreadful questions, and if you don't reply 



he will point to the statute which authorizes him to do the 

 best he can, which is often enough to go as high as he dares. 

 No one wishes to tell his private affairs to a stranger, and 

 when this outsider is a fellow-resident of a small rural com- 

 munity, in which one's own affairs are apt to be so much 

 better known to everyone but the person immediately con- 

 cerned, the situation becomes unpleasant in the extreme. 



Every taxpayer is aware that taxes are divided into two 

 general classes — taxes on real estate and taxes on personal 

 property. The taxes on real estate should offer compara- 

 tively few difficulties, and should provoke little criticism. Of 

 course they do just the opposite, but the theory of land taxa- 

 tion is an equitable assessment, in which property of similar 

 situation, utility and value is assessed at a uniform and 

 identical rate. Thus the man who owns a farm of fifty or a 

 hundred acres is justified in assuming that his property will 

 be taxed at the same proportionate rate as that of his 

 neighbor who occupies and uses land of similar value. This 

 is the theory, and it is a just one; often enough it is carried 

 out in practise, often enough it is violated and ignored in a 

 mysterious way it is impossible to understand. Violations 

 of this rule amount to rank injustice. 



The personal property tax is a very different thing and 

 creates the greatest amount of dissatisfaction and distrust. 

 Different States have their different systems of levying the 

 personal tax, and different ways of enforcing it; but they are 

 all alike in this : that they create, promote and develop the 

 heartiest dissatisfaction. Much of this is unavoidable, per- 

 haps a good deal of it is justified by the unreasonable de- 

 mands made upon even the smallest accumulation of re- 

 sources. Thrift is discouraged and debt is encouraged. 



It should be obvious that here is a public question demand- 

 ing instant and immediate remedying. It is a reform so 

 urgent that all good forces should quickly unite in bringing 

 about a better condition of things. As a matter of fact, in- 

 stead of being better, matters in this direction are yearly 

 becoming worse. The search for personal property is be- 

 coming keener as it disappears from sight. The number of 

 persons who own nothing taxable is increasing in leaps and 

 bounds; yet our wealth is greater than it ever was, more 

 money is being spent, the annual crop of millionaires is still 

 large and ample for all necessary purposes. Someone must 

 own our stores of personal property. 



In the midst of all this turmoil the rural tax assessor 

 quietly pursues the even tenor of his ways. Fortified with 

 his little list of questions he can make the rural property 

 owner more uncomfortable than he ever dreamed of being. 

 The policy pursued by one community may be changed by 

 the election of an assessor who is so rash as to look up the 

 laws by which he must be governed, and when this is the 

 case, everything is lost. The law seldom leaves any loophole, 

 and the conscientious assessor can assess a great deal in the 

 way of taxes and make himself exceedingly unpopular. He 

 is, in fact, between the devil and the deep blue sea. On one 

 side is the law and his oath of office; on the other are his 

 fellow townsmen who have always expected to end their days 

 in a region of small taxes. There is not much help for those 

 already located; but the newcomer should familiarize him- 

 self with the local tax laws before purchasing land and 

 settling down for assessment purposes. 



