Birmingham age-herald., 1895-01-06
TAXES.
Sam Jones Discusses This Per- picking and Burdensome Topic.
Tarir the Government Means of Taxt ation - Unjust Features or Our Sys- tem-An the Parties Tried and
 Found Wanting.
IcoPyRlcHT. 1894

the basis and makes the differentiated difference between the two great par ties, the democrats and the repub- licans.
 suppose the question of tariff will continue to agitate the minds of our politicians for years to come, but the question now not only agitating the minds but emptying the pockets of tho great masses of our people is taxes.
 suppose about the only difference between tariff and sax is tha. the na- tional government obtains money with which to run it's affairs by lcvying a tax called the tariff, and the states, cities, counties and municipalities of the states levy taxes in order to raise money for their current expenses.
 With tariff and taxes both levied upon our people ard the products they use. no wonder we find ourselves un- able to meet the burdensome load placed on us by nation, state, county and municipality.
 It is true that the tariff. levied in the last two years lacks many millions of producing enough money to defray the current expenses of the government. Our states, counties and municipalities are nearly all in the same fix-the out go greater than the income.
 The articles upon which the national government levies the internal revenue don't affect us all in heap. Each drink of whisky the old topcr takes, each cigar and quid of. tobacco of the tobacco worm, each. yard of woolen goods, silks, etc. That comes upon us so gradually we don't feel it, but our city, county and municipal taxes all o0 come in a heap, they all come at the same season of the year. The man who has not felt the drain and hardship upon him as he paid his taxes this year must surely be one of the favored sons of earth.
 Now some things must be done, two we mention. First, retrenchment and economy on the part of nation, state, county and city.
 Ninety-nine households out of one hundred over our country have re- trenched In expenses, some twenty-five per cent, some fifty per cent. and some as much as seventy-five per cent. Ne cessity forced them. It was either re- trenchment or bankruptcy. Now if
  and everything else must retrench from twenty-five to seventy-fve per cent, why and where Is the common sense in the condition of things which multiplies the nations indebtedness, the cities extravagance and the towns outgo?.
 Take my own county in the state of Georgia. The county demands of each citizen about sixty-dve cents on the one hundred dollars, tho state about forty-five, making about one dollar and ten cents on each hundred dollars for state and county. Our municipal tax is about ninety cents on fair valuation. Together they are two dollars on the hundred and growing every year.
 saw our tax collectors book of re- ceipts some ten days ago, in the mid dle of December, and it seemed to me that not one tax receipt in twenty had been torn from it's place and only fif- teen days more for the payment there of.
 l suppose this is fair representa- tion of all the tax collectors books of receipts in all our southern land.
 Taxes, like death, must be met, but most of our people arc as totally up- prepared for the one as they are for other We must have rctrenchment. Our taxes, both state, county and mu- nicipal, altogether ought not to be over one per cent.
 Again, we must have equalization of this burden. understand that our merchants all told give in fifty-six thousand dollars of merchandise on which they are tSxed and yet we have scores of merchants who carry from ten to thirty thousand dollars of stock, and one merchant, understand, the actual invoice of whose stock showed eight thousand dollars, appears on the tax list at about fifteen hundred dol lars There alone is discrepancy of sixty-five hundred dollars. The per sonalty of our town appears on the tax digest valued at one hundred and thir- ty-four thousand dollars. This in- cludes a national bank with capital fifty thousand dollars and a private
 with a capital of forty thousand
 ars And the household and litch-
 furniture, horses, vehicles. jewelry
 Fall combined arc eighty-four thou End dollars, including three first-class Livery stables. These things must be ooled into. Personally I have no ob- kction to any man making false state ments and false returns if he sees prop CT to do so, until those false statements and returns shall put additional bur den upon others who would be honest and deal fair with the government, state, county and municipality.
 If we must have so much money then let every man pay his part on real es- tate and on personal property.
 Upon real estate we are assessed in many places more than the market value of the property. doubt if more than ten per cent. of the personal prop erty is really taxed. I
 What is everybody's business is n0 bodys business" is an adage very and very true, and year after Ear taxes are levied, false returns are made, the burden unequalized, until now we are devising new means by which to reach the end of obtaining all the money essential to the wants of our different national and state insti- tutions; and when a man shall get