The Press., 1886-04-08
(Hartford Courant,) THE STATE TAX QUESTION.

It is admitted by all who look into the difficulties of adjusting taxes upon some basis of equity that one great obstacle lies in the way in which the grand list of each town is made up. There hangs over the assessors the constant fear of getting the list so high that their town will have to pay more than it's fair share of the state tax, which is levied upon the lists of the towns.
 It is true that in pursuance of this mo- ton they do act contrary to the letter of the law and the oaths that they take as officers, but that sentiment in society which makes laws valid or invalid sustains them in this. At the recent hearing be- fore the finance committee, on this sub ject, Farmer Goodwin" of the legislature declared that the true solution of the difi- culty was to enforce the laws as they now are. And he went on to say that, having been put into an office where he had con- trol of the matter, he set himself to see that the law was enforced. We will only add, what he added himself, that the at- tempt was an utter failure.
 The attempt will always be failure un- til the conditions are removed which make it to the advantage of each town to have its list undervalued. That is the whole truth of it. The state tax commission took hold of the problem at this end to begin with and decided that the way to begin tax reform was to separate the towns so that one should not be in compe- tition with another.
 Take the state tax off the grand lists and how shall that sum be raised. The rate Is small, only IL mills ; yet it should not be forgotten that the largest item of revenue raised by the state IS this same tax upon the towns. Casting about for some other basis than the uneven grand lists on which to rest this tax, the commis- sion at the suggestion of one of its New Haven members had its attention called to the idea of tax based upon population. This had been suggested to him by vari- ous assessors and others who had had practical experience of the working of the tax laws.
 Population means prosperity, activity, and the other clements that make up the life and give the value to a community. There has been coined somewhere a phrase of protest to the effect that "tax on thrift is against the prosperity of soci- ety. It sounds very well at first, but what other tax is there ? Can we live by taxing bankruptcy? Can those who have nothing be made to pay Manifestly not. There IS nothing but thrift and the results of thrift to tax If, therefore, a tax based on population is tax based on the ele- ments of prosperity, it IS, so far as that goes, fair. "A
 The next question was how to ascertain the population of the state year after year, for ratio altered only once in ten years, by the national census, would be mani festly unfair. The state calls for return every year by the number of its school children and pays out very large sum of money on that basis. The commission recommended that this return be made the basis of estimating the population of the towns and that the state, deciding what gross sum shall be paid by the towns, divide the assessment for this sum among them in proportion to this school age population. It is not a tax on chil- dren, but on the grand list of the towns only 1t is divided among them in propor- tion to the children and not according to the size of the lists, which are liable to be made up very differently in different towns and to bear no just ratio to each other.
 The towns being interested to have the enumeration fair one, as 1t is a means of paying and receiving money, would be likely to furnish correct returns, and it is believed that the number of children bears a ratio to population and prosperity, which is quite regular and just. As the enumerators are paid for each child emu merated, they would be likely to find all there are, and, as the towns tax would de- pend on the number, the return is likely to be supervised and held in safe check.
 The change proposed need not be al- ways maintained. It might be tried and given up if not considered just after fair trial. Meanwhile grand lists would be likely to be readiusted in the towns and a fairer basis be obtained to returnto The proposition was advanced this year by it. self, because it is distinct and preliminary. The future course of the commission might be largely guided by whether this proposition was acceptable or not to Ihe legislature. .....---..... .....