The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1900-11-14
The Tax Committees Report.

Governor Smith, in accordance with
the action of the Legislature of 1898, to
investigate the matter OF "double tax
ation," made a somewhat voluminous
report at the beginning of the session,
and later House bill No. 122 was intro
duced to give effect to the committees
recommendations
The committee publishes many find
ings and makes various recommends
tions. Its findings are for the most
part matters of general understanding
and its recommendations are not new.
Anyone who has followed the course of
public discussion and legislation, or at
tempted legislation, for the laot twenty
years, in respect of the matters under
consideration, finds the old complaints
and the old remedies proposed reap
pearing in the committees report.
The report is useful in that it puts on
record some of the tricks and evasions
OF property owners to evade paying the
share of the expense of maintaining the
State government the law provides that
they shall pay, and, further, the inf
deity of the officers chosen under the
Law of the State to appraise property
for taxation to the plain requirements
of the law they swear faithfully to obey.
Evasion, or downright fraud, or per-
jury, on the part of the property own
ers who have come to be classified as
"tax DODGERS" is exemplified among
other methods resorted to, in the prsc-
tice of putting into banks taxable per-
sonal property as security for an imag-
mary loan while the owner is making
out his personal list. After the list is
made out and sworn to the collaterals
are recalled. There is evidence, also,
the committee says that many indiv-
iduals having sums in excess of 81 800
withdrawn their money just before
April l, and invest it for few days in
non-taxable property, or make some
similar temporary disposition of the
money, till the Hateful April is passed.
1t is further stated as fact that, while
the law exempts savings bank deposits
from direct taxation up to the sum of
1880, "a man will deposit $500 in the
name of each member of his family"
and thus multiply many fold the ex-
emption the law intends shall apply to
single deposit of $500. The forego-
ing are not the only expedients of tax
dodgers; they are simply specimen
bricks"-and all these things are we'll
understood in the State at large and are
within the knowledge of many of the
la y makers, if not all of them.
For another form of violation of law
and tax evasion the listers themselves
are directly responsible. They "sol-
EMMY swear" that they will "appraise
all personal and real property sub
ject to taxation at its true value in
money" and then 60 deliberately to
work to appraise that property at from
fifty per cent to seventy-fve per cent
of "its value in money" or of "such
sum as they would appraise the same in
payment of just debt due from SOL
vent debtor, having regard to the cur
rent value of such property, and the
sales thereof, other than auction sales,
in the locality where it is situated" as
the law specifically commands. Evi.
dence of these truths is within the
knowledge of every person at all con-
versant with the subject.
1t therefore results that through
evasion, false swearing, official disre-
gard of the letter and the spirit of the
law, and through, legal exemptions, a
very large amount of property owned
or in the possession of individuals con-
tributes nothing whatever to the sup
port of government. The committee
finds that the average rate of general
taxation in the State, on the grand list,
10 Rl'Ols w nht WOulu U6 Iu0 hN6Tdgb
if all the property, in amount and val
ne, the law intends shall pay taxes,
were returned or appraised in accord
ance with the requirements Of the law?
And in view of the fact that 80 large
an amount of property evades taxation,
or is untaxed for one reason or another,
of what value is this average tax rate,
30 obtained, in its reference to other
interests which, it is clear, fully and
in good faith are paying the taxes the
law exacts of them? And what rem
edy does the committee propose for the
evils ii finds in the tax system of the
State2
No proposal of reformatory legisla-
ton is made. The committee recon-
mends, on the one hand, because money
lenders dodge their taxes that they
shall be legally exempted from taxa
ton; on the other, because, from the