162 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
itself. A protracted procedure is an invitation to the officials to be 
dilatory as well as a temptation to delay action for political reasons. 
A briefer termination of proceedings would reduce costs, invite closer 
attention on the part of the public, and discourage owners from letting 
their land go delinquent in the first place. 
Granting that the law itself is sometimes faulty, it is nevertheless 
true that official practice in the collection of taxes often departs widely 
from the legal requirements. Very often collection does not begin on 
the date fixed by law nor proceed with dispatch and impartiality. 
Personal property is not levied upon, sales are not held on time, penal- 
ties are not imposed. Even when officials carry out the first steps in 
the enforcement of the law with considerable vigor, they are likely to 
relent before taking the final steps toward foreclosure. Yet, without 
this final action all the preliminary steps are meaningless gestures. 
The reasons, other than political, which frequently explain this 
reluctance to foreclose on real estate are (1) the inability of the State 
or county governments under existing laws to make any profitable use 
of the land; (2) the hope that the land, if left in private ownership, 
may again become taxpaying; and (3) a deep-seated aversion to the 
confiscation of private property. 
More sinister than general inertia and leniency on the part of tax 
officials is deliberate favoritism for personal or political reasons. 
Instances could be cited where tax collectors have withheld the names 
of their friends from the list of those advertised for delinquency. In 
a certain State one sheriff made it a regular practice before making a 
tax settlement to detach the undelivered tax receipts of his friends 
and assume personal liability for their taxes. Another sheriff engaged 
in the same practice for 21 years before it was discovered, at his 
death, that he owed the county $120,000. Favored treatment of 
certain individuals or classes must inevitably shake the faith of the 
taxpayers generally in the collecting agents and invite further 
delinquency. 
TAX DELINQUENCY 
DEFINITIONS 
It is evident from the foregoing description of tax-collection pro- 
cedure that the term ‘“‘tax delinquency ”’ is generally used very loosely 
and that there are many degrees of delinquency which must be dis- 
tinguished in any study of causes and effects. A useful general dis- 
tinction is that between short-term delinquency, which may reflect 
only temporary influences, and long-term delinquency, which may 
result from more fundamental maladjustments. Short-term delin- 
quency may be defined broadly as the degree of delinquency which 
has been attained when taxes have not been paid at the end of the 
legal period of collection and have become subject to certain penal- 
ties. The status of long-term delinquency may be said to have been 
attained when the taxes for several years remain unpaid and fore- 
closure is imminent. Each of these broad classifications may be 
subdivided according to period of delinquency and according to the 
steps which have been taken in the process of foreclosure or redemp- 
tion. The legal terminology and administrative practices differ so 
widens the States that no general definitions can be universally 
applied. 
