Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1881-04-21
Twice Taxed.

1he Boston Economist does not like the
prlnclple OF double taxation, any more thar
GO Taxpayers here. The unjust system pre-
Valls to a certain extent in Massachusetts
ana efforts are being made to remedy the
evil. We have heretofore given the views
OF other Boston papers on the subject. The
Economist says:
Once is certainly bad enough, OF good
enough, according to the ruling rates Of tax
alton but twice is the practical equivalent
OF robbery. The Legislative Joint Committee
on Taxation has the subject up before il
againsf0r consideration, and some very strong
and unanswerable questions have been made
upon 1t. The present system of taxing real
estate is manifestly absurd and unjust. The
visible and the invisible are, according to the
system taxed alike. Real personal and real
estate property are taxed alike, and it is per-
fectly right. But let personal lend itself to
real property, for the convenience and advan-
tage of both, and the borrower finds himself
all at once subjected to double tax. He
has no more to be taxed than he had before :
only he has taken step to make his proper
ty serviceable, the same as the lender has
done by his personal property. In this way,
real estate in the first place carries all it can
| bear, because it is visible and in the next
place, all the benefit it hopes for from having
merely done something to become useful
Neither borrower or lender has a dollar more
property than he had before, yet one of them
IS compelled to pay. not only his own tax
but tax on the others property, too. 1t is
very much as If a man had piece of land to
work, but had no cattle to work it with. He
hires his neignbors oxen for such a consider
alton as they may agree upon, and the law
steps in and taxes him for the land and cat
tie both
When we have once got rid Of this ncOn-
gruous, grasping, and wholly unreasonable
system Of double taxation we shall wonder
how we ever endured it as long as we did
The best that can be said of it, by way of
palliation, is that the law takes care to tax
man for what he designs and expects to add
to his possessions. He knows that when he
borrows certain amount of money with
which to make real estate improvements, he
means if he can make his real estate of so
much more value than it is at present. The
fair and proper way to proceed, then, is to
wait until the expected increase in value
has been actually developed. This taxing in
advance Of the achievement of real values,
instead of offering a premium on enterprise,
only imposes penalty upon it. 1t cannot in
strict sense and reason be shown to be any
thing else. There is just as much joint
ownership in mortgaged property as there is
in undivided ownership; but in the latter
case the several owners are not each taxed
for the whole property, nor ought it to be
done in the case of either of the owners of
mortgaged property. The peculiar wrong
done is in taxing property which as yet has
no existence. 1t will be time enough to tax
it when it has. Nobody will object to that.
This exacting a tax on what one expects to
own in the future, and is only striving to
realize, is the product of a theory that could .
have had its origin in envy alone.