The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-03-19
THE TAX BILL.
Some ofthe ohisc,lons Made to It.

To the Editor of the Journal and Courier: | The defense of the proposed tax bill
 made by MT. Rowe before the Chamber
 of Commerce bristled with supreme
 court decisions, and had I not known
 him should have supposed l was list
 ening to an able bodied lawyer in good and regular standing.
 In my letter to the Register of March 16 I showed how under this bill there
 would result peculiarities of this sort;
 a house assessed at $10,000 on land as-
 sessed at s150 per foot. next to a house
 more expensive In the building, assess
 ed at nothing on land assessed at $100
 per foot Mir Rowe replies to similar
 suggestion in Professor Farnam's letter
 by stating that in such cases a stand
 ard of value would be set which the assessors would heed. Which would be
 the standard, the s150 or the s10O per
 foot land? Ought the bill not to be
 amended so as to say which, and so as
 to compel the assessors to change the
 whole neghborhood when, under it,
 one piece had been changed? Ought not
 the 80 per cent. clause ne amended so
 that property worth s1s,o0o and assess
 ed at $20,O00 could get relief without of
 fering to sell at s16,000?
 MT Rowe took rather decided ground
 in his remarks against the single tax at the same time that he advocated one
 horn of It. It is a poor rule that doesn't work both ways. Society assesses pri- yate property through it's agents the assessors Now assume a case of two properties each worth $i0,0O0 and the one A assessed at s20,000 and the other B at s5.0OO. The individual owning A could get relief under the proposed bill but how about the rights of society in connection with property B? If the owner of A can go to society and say "You have over assessed my property, now buy it at $10,O00, or reduce my as- sessment to that figure" why should not member of the community, and as such a representative of society, be permitted to go to the authorities and say Property B is under assessed will give S10,000 for it," and why should not the bill be amended SO as to there upon initiate proceedings for selling the owner out or raising his assessment and then. to make things equitable, for rais- ing the assessment of the whole neigh borhood? This is the logic of the bill carried to the end of the trend; it would get real estate into the hands of those who wanted it with the largest finan- cial sincerity, just as the single taxers want 1t to be, and i. would enable any rich man who wanted any poor mans l home to get it by simply offering to pay l more taxes on it than it's owner could | afford. The present system is ancient, | has some merits, and would work very | well, possibly, with a change in the per- sonnel of the workers. Property is now assessed by single set of men who, In 1 2 assessing each single piece of property |, have in mind or are assumed to have in | mind all the other surrounding real es- tate, and that which environs the sur When now an appeal is taken to the courts they also take into neighboring values and | are governed thereby. !
 Under the proposed bill, as MT. Rowe wants 1t to work, and as he would presumably amend it to compel it to work, whenever any one wanted to sell l piece of property and was willing to tell at some figure below the assessment le could offer it at his own figures and f no takers could be found in @ speoi- led time the assessment would have to ome down to such price. This would