The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-01-20
WANT THE TAX REMOVED.
Street Railways Asked Relief From
the City Council.


the City Council.
The appeal of the electric railway com
panies of the city for relief from what
they claim to be an unduly heavy burden
of taxation, will be considered at the next
meeting Of council.
The figures given in their petition show
that the electric railways paid in taxes
last year to the state, county
and city slO,424 90. OF this
amount the state received 50. 396s99
202 IS.
The petition shows that besides paying
the city tax Of u per cent. and the state
and county tax Of about l per cent. upon
the assessed valuation of their properties,
they pay special tax of $500 year for
each company engaged in the business,
and in addition to this tax of $50 for
each car used by them. They show that
under the new tax ordinance of council,
which makes it necessary for each car,
whether in regular use or only used
portion of the time or In case of
emergency, must have a separate
badge. The ordinance is so worded that
badges taken out for winter cars cannot
De transferred to summer cars or vice
versa when either set of cars is not in
use. This it is claimed will increase the
amount of taxes demanded Of the street
railway companies this year 81 800 over
last years taxes.
This, the companies claim, is unjust
They hold that they should be relieved
OF the special car tax altogether or at
least should not be compelled to take out
badges for cars which are not in use.
This claim appears plausible from the
statement made by street railway of
tclal to MORNING NEWS reporter
I'VE have over fifty cars" he said.
only half Of them are kept regularly in
use, but under the new tax ordinance we
are compelled to take out a badge for
each car. The travelling public demands
that we furnish close cars in winter and
open cars in summer, in complying with
which demand we are compelled to keep
on hand nearly twice as many cars
as are In regular use in either
season. 1t certainly is not fair to make US
suffer for our enterprise by compelling us
to take out badges for both summer and
winter cars. One set of badges ought to
be sufficient"
The petition of the street railways
states that while the petitioners are fully
sensible of their obligations to the city
for valuable franchises conferred upon
them, 1t should be remembered that rail
way opera tion by electricity is still in it's
infancy, and that the system is very ex-
improved machinery. They also refer to the
fact that the past year has been very
hard one with the street railways as well
as with other corporations, as is shown
by the statements of their earnings and
the low quotations of their stocks on the
market. They states also, that as these
enterprises represent large investments
OF local capital they are especially deserv-
ing OF consideration at the hands Of the
city.
1t is possible that portion Of the re-
quest of the railways will be granted,
though it is not likely that their taxes
will be reduced below what they were
last year.
1T does appear somewhat unreasona-
BILE, )" said Mayor McDonough in speaking
of the subject, chat the street RAILWAYS
should be compelled to take out badges
for cars which are in use only a portion
OF the year. Personally, without having
fully investigated the subject, my opinion
is that it would be sufficient to require
them to have badge on each car used by
them on the streets of the city without
requiring separate badge for each car
| owned by them. This would allow
them to transfer badges from winter
to summer cars at the change of the sea-
son. 1t would not be proper, however,
for them to use any car on the streets of
the city at any time without having a
badge on it.
THE general appeal of the street rail-
way companies for relief" continued the
mayor, ION the ground that times have
been hard with them, is preposterous.
How many other corporations
are there in the city and
private individuals, too, for that matter.
who have suffered by the hard times? If
the city should set precedent of reliev-
ing one class of corporations on this
ground, how many similar petitions of
this kind would we receive2 l do not
think the tax burden is any heavier on
the street railways than on other corpora
tions.n