Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1893-02-02
THIS MAN


Urges That All Taxation De Placed on
Land and Improvements.
Editor of The voice.-Wc ought to
have the single tax upon land values,
universal temperance and the kingdom
of God upon earth; but we may not get
any of these for long time to come.
Let us take, to begin with, what we can
get now.
The taxation of al visible and touch
able lands and improvements, real
estate alone, requires no constitutional
amendment, no complicated laws, no
doubtful experiment.; it needs only the
full enforcement Qf one of our present
good laws and the repeal of one of
our present unenforcibie and silly
ones. The law of nearly every state
requires that all real estate shall be
assessed for taxation at its full and true
value, as it would be valued in pay
ment of a just debt from a solvent debt
CT, or at the price which willing buy
er would pay willing seller. The as
SCISSORS make oath to assess it so. and
then, as a matter of course, put down
unused speculative land at from one
quarter to one-fiftietk of that value,
the little home at its full value. and
other real estate at from two-thirds
down to one-third of its value. The re-
suit is that the governments interest
in unimproved land is, in practice.
merely nominal one. Let us enforce
the law.
The farmers, who eventually get to
thinking on all great questions, will
not long object to this. If it will not
relieve them of their intolerablc bur-
dens, as it is claimed the single tax
would do, at least it will not increase
these burdens. BY lessening the cost
o: collection and increasing the con-
scious interest of every taxpayer in hon-
est and economical government, it will
decrease the total amount of taxation
A less proportion of this total will
fall upon the farmers shoulders, since
a block OF land in city is worth as
much as county in the country. The
farmers will be able to make the rail-
roads contribute to the county ex-
penses, as the railroads are said to own
over one-ninth of all the land in the
United States. Silver mines, oil fields,
coal beds. all are land. Tax that land.
tax it at its real value. Let personal
property go-most of it will go anyhow
the farmer can not transfer or kill his
personal property, but the banker or
the merchant can hide his bonds. his
jewels. his accounts. and can arrange to
have little stock on hand at taxing day.
He can not hide his house. Tax that
house. You may check the building of
houses, but that is comparatively a
small evil.
Both clergyman and mora1ist are an
xious to stop the annual perjury forced
upon business men by the competition
of q few bad men under a bad law.
Men 90 not wish to swear falsely; most
of them wish to be honest citizens and
to pay their share of taxes.
Merchants who advertise for custom
ers give them attention, comfort. enter
tainment; do not want to frighten them
away from town by taxes, even when
they come to stay. Owners of real es-
tate, the value of which depends on the
amount of personal property on and
about it, do not want to drive that
property away by taxing it when it
comes.
Ali are ready for this plan. Assoc;a-
tons, not Missionaries, but of intelligent,
practical. responsible owners of real
estate are springing up all over the
country, in Buffalo, in New, York, in
Tenn. in Portland. Ore,
in Canada and in other places. ALI aim
to exempt chattels from taxation, and
all meet with hearty support. Stop all |
the unfairness. all the spying. all the
to production, all the |
all the perjury, all the OPP
preston of the poor connected with |
taxing what men make, and tax only |
what every one can see, what any one |
can value.
Theories are very good, many of them |
beautiful. some of them true, but this |
is no theory. This is common, hard |
sense, which would give us to-day two
thirds of the benefits which Henry |
George in his ssSocial Problems claims |
for single tax. BOLTON HALL. :.