Litchfield enquirer., 1879-12-04
Double Taxation.

We imagine that our readers have not for gotten the important tax case of Kirtland us Hotchkiss which went up from Woodbury in this county, to the U. S. Supreme court. The point involved was the right to tax our bonds secured by mortgage of real estate in Chicago
 That right was maintained by our own Su- preme Court, and, now, their view is affirmed, or, at least, their action is not overruled, by the Supreme Court of the United States. In nearly every town in the United States there has been more or less money withheld from tax collectors, awaiting the final decision of be to sensibly increase the income of our sever- al towns from taxation.
 So common and 30 long continued, has been the practice of taxing debts due the residents of one State from debtors residing in another, that we could hardly expect it's suppression by judicial decision and it is now simply mat ter of just discretion with legislatures We still remain of opinion that it is utterly wrong in principle to tax in one State obligations which derive their whole value from property
 
 there. A debt due to citizen of Connecticut from a citizen of Illinois is only valuable to the former because of his right to call upon the courts of Illinois to compel payment of that debt from property situated in that State. The only just basis of any taxation of property is the protection of that property by the State or, in case of debts, the right the State gives the creditors of suing for their recovery Tn it's courts. In the case under consideration, however, the debt is worthless, so far as the State of Connecticut can help the creditor. He must go to the Illinois courts for the col lection of his debt out of the debtors property there situated, and which is already fully taxed there.
 Taxing debt, and then taxing the property which alone makes that debt of value, IS SO evident ly wrong that where debtor and credi- tor are both residents of Connecticut, provision is already made for avoiding double taxation by the process of swearing off" such debts For instance, debtor owning farm in Mor- ris, but owing debt in Litchfeld, secured by mortgage of the Morris farm, may either pay full taxes on the mortgaged property, or he may c"mpel the creditor to pay the tax on his in- terest in it. In either case, however, Morris, the situs of the property, gets the tax and not Litchfeld, where the creditor resides. But, let the debtor be a resident of another State, and Litchfield taxes the debt while the proper ty whose value makes the debt valuable is already fully taxed in the State where it is To- cated. Why should Litchfield be allowed to tax the debt in the latter case any more than in the former?
 There is another practical objection to at- tempting the taxation of debts at the domicil of the creditor, and that is the facility of evad- ing such taxation. How are the assessors of Litchfieh to know how many bonds secured by mortgage of property owned in other States, it's residents hold? AS a matter of fact there are residents of this place, the bulk of whose property is situated Tn other states, and of whose obligations of the kind held taxable in Kirtland Us Hotchkiss the assessors here can have no possible knowledge. Nevertheless the property which alone glves those obliga- tions value is already fully taxed, and is not that all which in justice we can ask?
 Immediately on it's assembling next Janu- ary, our legislature should pass statute put ting stop to this iniqultous practice of tax ing debts as if they were property. The present law, constitutional though it may be, is none the less pure tyranny