Waterbury Democrat., 1901-11-19
TAXES NEXT YEAR
Will be Laid and Collected on
 New Plan.
PROPERTY MUST BE LISTED


 What Property Man Should Pay
 Taxes On--The Oath Man or Wo-
 man Takes When List of Property
 Is Handed In.
 It is said that there are two sides to every question, and by all accounts the matter of taxation is no exception, so that no one need be surprised rhat there is much to be said ill defense of the position maintained by the board of assessors up to the present time. 4 man who has served as assessor IS authority for the statement that 1t is q wonder things are in as good shape in that office as they are. He repre- sents that the compensation is wholly inadequate and that i'll addition to This the town and city boards never showed q disposition to help the assessors. For several years they have been looking for maps and other things which they considered necessary, but no attention has been paid to their demands. Nf course it should be borne in mind that the talk now going on relative to the method of assessing property has noill- ing to do with the clerks or the meiIl- bers of the board. It is the system that is being combatted. and this, ir seems, is to be changed next year, when all taxable property will be ls!- ed at it's full value. the change to go into effect with consolidation. Tho present board of assessors is the most careful the town has had ill years. The aldermen have lost no time in correct ing clerical errors made by the board now in office. This is something ln- usual. During the two preceding years the board had q batch of suca applications before it almost every meeting. It is said that the collector didn't find one "bull'' in fhe last years rate bills, all of which speaks well for the present board of assessors.
 What class of property is taxable7 Here is the list:
 Dwelling houses. stores. mills and manufactories. acres of land, lots, horses. oxen, cows, yearlings, neat cat tie. coaches, carriages and wagons. clocks. watches, jewelry. panoforfes and other musical instruments over S25. household furniture exceeding 5000. libraries exceeding S20. invcsr- ments in mechanical and manufactul- ing operations. money at interest in this State and elsewhere money on hand exceeding S100
 After handing in his list a property owner makes the following declara- ton:
 "I do hereby declare under oath that the foregoing list. according to the besr of my knowledge. remembrance and belief. is a true statement of all my property liable to taxation, and that have included in said tax all bonds. notes and other evidences of indebt.l- ness. except such as are by statute cx- fad 4n n by state treasurer as not on the first day of March of this year liable to tax ation in Connecticut, and which are now owned by me. or held by me in trust. or which I am required by the law to put into my said tax list: and also all bonds, notes or other evidences of indebtedness. and all shares of the capital stock of any corporation. the stock of which is taxable. which have transferred as collateral security to any corporation. I also declare under oath that I nave not conveyed or tenn porarily disposed of any estate for the purpose of evading the laws relating to the assessment and collection Of taxes.'
 Any person signing and delivering to the assessors a false statement .of the foregoing form shall be guilty of the crime of perjury and subject to tho punishment by law provided for said crime.
 From this it will be seen that rate payer who purposely omits to mention anything enumerated in the above list makes oath to what be knows to be false and leaves himself liable to ar- rest It is an evasion of the law to neglect to list your piano or jewelrv just aS it would be to leave out yutiu house or barn.
 It is difficult to get at some of thess articles 1t the owners are not canlisY enough to put them down in the list handed to the assessors. For instance, how can the assessors find out how much jewelry or other property of that class man owns. In order to deter mine this. and even then they might not succeed, they would have to sfcol- lar" men on the streets and search their pockets for watches and spare money, call at the houses of the well to do folks and look through the h,l- reaus in the hope of finding some dia- monds. hold up young men leaving the jewelry stores with diamond rings and find out whether they are going to wear the articles themselves or turn them over to their wives or sweet hearts. Whew! the assessors couldn't do it alone. They'd be arrested on q charge of attempted burglary or sh0r down as footpads. If Mayor Kllduif wants to see horses. cows, pigs car- riages, pianos. jewelry. money at n- terest and other taxable property iisf- ed according to law he should start out by making provision to pay half q dozen constables. whose duty it will be to act as a body guard to the as- sessors while they are making their rounds for the purpose of locating tax dodgers.