Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1901-10-10
INEQUALITY or TAXATION.

fNEQI AfsIGt OF TAAaIIoN.
correspondent of The Chicago
Chronicle directs the attention of farm
ers and others who fear that the rich
will escape taxation If evidences of
debt are exempted to the fact chat the
attempts to tax that kind of alleged
property is failure at best. He refers
especially to the case of California,
where the assessed value of personal
property which was 80 per cent of the
total in 1860, fell to "a per cent in 1874,
26 per cent in 1880 and 1879 per cent in
1894 He also refers to the fact that
in Boston in 1887 the assessors could
ind only $39 900 900 worth of personal
property, which was only a small frac-
ton of the assessed valuation of the
real estate. which could not be hid
den, and that they arbitrarily multi
piled the personal property valuation
by AZ for purposes of taxation.
The difficulty of reaching this kind
of property has been exemplified in
Wheeling, as 1t has everywhere else
throughout the country. In fact, a.
our contemporary points out, the at
tempt to find this kind of property for
taxation must necessarily fail for two
reasons: First. because the great bulk
--NDueh, property is easily concealed or
can be found only by Extensively in
quisitorial methods. and, second. be-
cause the taxation of evidences of debt
II it could be reduced to practice would
be monstrously unjust.
The writer believes that even if
these evidences of debt could be reach
ed and taxed with the same certainty
and to the same extent as real estate
the property pledged for the payment
of the debts would be doubly taxed,
while property not so pledged would be
taxed only once. The following illus
tration of the point is given:
IF a man buys farm partly on credit,
gives notes secured by mortgages for. say,
two-thirds of the value, he pays the tax
on the farm. If the seller of the farm is
taxed on the notes and knows he cannot
amount of the tax, with something over
10 make sure thing of it. to the rate of
interest or to the price OF the farm if
there is an effective usury law TO prevent
him from adding it to the interest Thus
the purchaser pays both taxes-the tax on
the farm and the tax on the notes.
This is rather hard on the purchaser
the poor debtor whom those who insist
to
debtor has 10 pay the tax on the farm
and the tax on the notes besides, while
his farmer neiehbor who is not poor
aebtor. but OWES his farm clear Of in
cumbrance, has to pay tax on his farm
only.
Thus the rich man whom the farmers
and other advocates of taxation of evi.
dences of debt are forever chasing after
escapes just the same If the evidences are
found and taxed as he would if no at
tempt were made to tax them at all"
This is a reasonable argument as ap-
piled to the laws of taxation and to the
peculiar situation in Illinois. In West
Virginia. however, the trouble has
been not so much with the laws-in-
adequate and unequal as they areas
with the assessments under these laws,
especially SO far as personal property
is concerned. While the last decennial
valuation in West Virginia showed
some remarkable discrepancies, short
romings and apparent determinations
that were the subject of widespread
protest at the time, they are annually
matched in the regular personal prop
erty assessment This farce is seen
best in New York, where multimillion-
aires habitually report the assessable
amount of their personal property we'll
down in the housands-frequently in
the hundreds. This sort of tax-dodg-
ing is most reprehensble since it shifts
the burden of taxation upon those
small owners of real and tangible prop
erty who generally are least able tc
stand it and to whom concealment Is
impossible.
The laws of taxation are unequal and
unjust enough as they stand, but tht
inequality and injustice would be in.
1nitely less than it is If they wer,
properly enforced