The evening times., 1896-03-05
EVlD|N6 THE PAYMENT
inability Of Assessor to Collect
Personal Property Tax.
FIGURES THAT ILLUSTRATE
Administration Was Asked Last Year
Upon Such Property, valned at $3,-
112,OOO, Belonging TO Estates, and
Yet the A Ass.ssOr Can Only Find $IO,-
OOO.OOOto owhichtheLivingC Confess.

The collection of tax on personal prop
| erty in the District is known to be incOm-
plete, and has been officially declared 10
| he so inequitable as To amount TO q farce.
| Assessor Trimble has practically said as
much in several Of his annual reports, his
comment in the report for the last fiscal
| year being to the effect that IAN equitable
| enforcement of the law is absolutely i'm
possible" and he advocates its repeal.
Mr.. Trimblc says in his report:
I'm former reports have claimed that
this law was wrong in principle; that IL
invited perjury, and was calculated to
demoralize the standard of public NOR
ality. have presented unassailable facts
and figures in support of This position, and
have also shown that the small revenue re-
sultant from this tax could easily be made
up on 4 revision of our license Ia ws, which
would avoid the necessity OF prying into the
affairs of our citizens.
Il venture this further assertion that,
II appealed TO, our courts would find a
close relationship between this and the
much abhorred income tax. which was
lately abolished by decision OF our high
est judicial tribunal
Assessor TRIMBLE's OBJECTION.
In a conversation with n Times reporter
today Mr.. TrinIble reiterated in part his
objections 10 the law, and said the whole
difficulty is in securing an accurate and
just return Of the valuations.
To accomplish this" he added, 1--WE
would be obliged to have a sufficient number
of deputies 10 visit every mans house and
personally inspect his belongings and inves-
tigate his private holdings in the effort
to ascertain the amount Of stock he holds,
and make Il general inquisitorial cxamina-
ton into his business affairs. II that were
done with one, ii should. of course, be done
with all, and you can see what an expense
it would be tO reach the facts. Even then
it would only approximate the truth.
ITO abolish the law would of course re-
lease great many wealthy people, but it
must be admitted that they are already
in effect exempt from the operations OF the
law"
Turning to his report for the year ended
June 80, 1855. the assessor showed that
the total of assessed valuations of per-
sonal property was but SlO,31I,131, and
said:
'Of course everybody knows that this
statement does not embrace all OF the as
sessable personal property OF the District,
but the difficulty is 10 get a correct assess
ment."
THE DIFFICULTY.
He cited the fact also that many persons
properly assessable do not reside here, and
this increases the difficult of the assessors.
A statement just prepa red by the register
of wills is TO a large extent corrobora-
tive of the assessors position. The state
ment of the register shows the value of the
personal property on which administration
was asked of the orphans ourt for the past
two years, and Is as follows:
For 1894, total $4,636, 6,Os5. so; for
1895. So. 3.112, 1921.
esetwoitemsagEregate S7,T4S. .614.79.
This represents the estates OF deceased per
sons only. but aggregates More than two
thirds OF the assessed valuations for either
year. and logically shows that, II the as
sessments for taxes are correct, the heirs to
estates paid nearly one-half OF the District
revenues from this source for each OF the
two years named.
The valuations shown by Register McGill
represent the aggregate OF iso cases, in
cluding the estate Of the late b. II. warder,
in personal property alone amounting to
about 81 100000. No similar statement
has ever been published prior to this, but it
is an important exhibit by reason of its ex-
aCtness, and furnishes valuable data upon
which to base an argument for either the
abolition of the personal tax or an enforce
ment of existing law.