The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1879-08-03

STATE OF LOUISIANA. D
Audi Ors Office.
new orleans, December 81 1872.
To the General Assembly:
have given the subject much careful study,
with view to Tedncs the present rate but find
mat under existing laws and actual necessities
me following must constitute the basis for the
rate OF taxation Tor the year ls73, TO viii
Mills.
Interest tax
State y
School tax .-.-...-... q
Special leyne tax ~
Levee construction tax Observation-Disclosures.
Levae repair tax
Total. ..-.-...,s y
The present mode of assessing property o.
| the state has failed to accomplish 9 tnir and
equitable valuation thereof. Within the parish
| OF Orleans assessors are paid percentage
| upon the amount Of their assessment rolls: as
! Injustice IL done by placing assessments very
high=-in some instances 100 per cent above the
~ - - = 'ioV CHAs. CLINTON. Auditor.
The total assessment Of the year 1872 was
1928 G6G ,653 SO, and the tax rate 2019 mills
yielding $4,Gs7 ,6G2 ~ In direct taxes.
| Under the new constitution the assessment
will be about one hundred and sixty millions
at mills, 100000, difference to the tax
| payers In this item alone Of $3,727 ,662 AZ be-
tween the machinery politics" represented
| by the Times and that represented by the
| DEMOCRAT MS compared to the year 1873 The
difference In favor Of the Democratio-C Con-
| servative party Is nearly four millions per
year.
1t was these expenditures and the thousand
and one Indirect methods of pIunderinR the
people that brought into existence the party
which has achieved these reforms and which
the management of the DEMOCRAT has from
the date Of the Fusion, in 1872, labored to keep
together. 1t is true that during kellogg's
term the rate Of taxation was reduced to 141l5s
mills, requiring from the taxpayers each
year about three millions Of dollars In direct
taxes. and against which the Democratic
Conservative party can claim In 1880 a differ
ence of two millions Of dollars per year saw
ing in direct taxes. But the savings by the
general public In the changed condition Or
things wrought out by the "machinep politics"
of which the Times complains is vast In other
directions as well as In the matter of direct
taxes.
The cost Of assessment is over one hundred
and twenty-five thousand dollars less upon
the face Of the papers, In addition to the fact
that the taxpayer is no longer plundered by
ments have been corrected. In the matter Of
tax collections, fully two hundred Thousand
dollars per year Is saved to the people In COM
missions alone. Honest and competent men
are appointed to these Offices. and the State
receives the revenue instead of 1t being plum
dered by straw bond collectors and question
able compromises. To Illustrate, we note In
one Of Auditor Clinton's reports list Of de-
faulting collectors In sums amounting to
$179,5OO, and In another Of Auditor CIinton's
reports. In statement made by Mr.. Hill, ex-
amner, and Drother-in-law to Mr. Packard,
where the State generously, in one year, IRE
mitted In compromise" the following amounts
due by tax collectors:
TO Blanchard, Of Morehouse Sl3,126 II |
10 Sitting OF st. Landry. ......s.... 1924 7S |
To JUDGE, of iberia -......... 4,O86 50 |
To Dayries. of Pointe Coupee - 500 90
Total =.-..+s,....... .$37, 337 a
And for the same years delinquencies
brought suits against collectors In the amount
Of over twenty Thousand dollars.
Then we have the enormous reductions Of
expenses to the people In the costs OF Iitiga-
ton. Under Radical laws q poor man who
became delinquent for a tax of ten dollars
became liable for costs, fees. penalties and In
terest. that swelled the bill to fifty or sixty
dollars. The saving to the people direct by
The correction of this abuse alone amounts
throughout the State to over two hundred
thousand dollars per year. We do not won
Ter at the dissatisfaction expressed by the
organ Of the men who reveled upon these
Drincely pickngs during the high carnival OF
raud that reigned In this State for years, and
t seems quite natural that the men and the
1arty who have deprived them Of what was
considered legitimate spoil should come In
Or abuse and villifcation, be sneered at as
machine politicians and dark hints as to
motives be coDjured up against them, but the
,eople and the Democratic Conservative
'arty will not halt in the work before them I
Until they shall have placed the capstone on
he work of reform by adopting all the
hanges recommended by the Convention,
nd thus make 1t impossible in the future for
ny set OF men to plumber them under the
.nise OF law.