The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1877-11-10

sent year. In the former appears the item
90 real estate $500 - in the latter, real estate,
$780," And here is the solution If the as
SCISSORS were to adhere to the valuation OF last
year in regard to these petty properties (and IN
the instances exhibited to as no improvements
had been added) there would have been no tax
leyiable, under section 3 of the law of 1876
| above onoted. Bot the manifest intent of gov
eminent this year is to rake the country for taxes
as with a Sc fine toothed comb, - and so the assess
ors proceed to double up these small properties,
putting down what is actually worth but two
hundred dollars at four hundred, and then by
deducting the three hundred which the law ex-
empts, there still remains one hundred dollars
valuation on which to assess and collect the sum
of seventy-fve cents for the benefit of the Public
Treasury. This is certainly a species of sharp
practice on the part of officials not at all calcu-
lated to render the government popular, particu-
larly with people of small means, upon whom
this doubling up of assessments especially bears,
and for whose especial benefit the beforemen-
toned section 8 of the act of 1876 was provided.
It is a shame for the Press to be called upon to
interpose between these poor people, who are
taxed when they are not legally taxable, and the
tax assessors who thus initiate values in order to
defeat the plain intent of the law. 1t may be a
question for the next legislature as to how much
money ought to be refunded by the public treas
ury to many poor persons in this community
who have been forced to pay taxes, while they
were exempt from taxation by section 3 of the
Statute cited; and TO others who have been doubly
or trebly taxed. The poverty of the former rem
ders the injustice all the more heinous. Thus,
what between double taxation on the one hand,
and the illegal taxation of the poor on the
other, it would seem that the Hawaiian Treasury
is placed in a very questionable position, anus
ingly suggestive of the fiscal acumen of the
rapacious Turkish Pashahs of the olden time
for nowadays, even in the land Of the Turks,
such fiscal infany as double taxation or the
illegal taxation Of the non. taxable poor, would
cost a Pasha, if not his head, at least his place.
Things, it seems, are different in Hawaii nei.
The sooner these abuses are remedied, the better,
especially that which falls so heavily on the
poorer members of the community.
Since the foregoing was put in type we have
received a notification from the Finance Office
which appears under the head of By Autbori-
ty" on our third page, and which to many tax
payers, will put quite a new and agreeable face
on the vexed taxation question. The Cabinet,
it appears, have taken the responsibility of doing
in the premises what is generally felt to be re-
quired by equity, justice and common sense.
We have heard the remark made that it would
have been much better had this been done in the
outset but we remember the old saw " Never
look a gift horse in the mouth We congrat-
ulate the Ministry and the country, that the
former have adopted in advance the policy sug-
gested in the letter of our correspondent " Queen
Street."