Omaha daily bee., 1903-03-14
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SIMPLY a TAX-sHfRKtNG DODGE.
The railroad representatives have pre-
vailed upon the house. which is con-
sldering the new revenue bill, to in
corporate in It an amendment by which
the state Board Of Transportation is
vested with the assessment Of all the
railroads operating i'm Nebraska, ire
spective of whether they cross county
lines or o In other words, the pres
ent law, which leaves for local assess
ment railroads completely within the
Jurisdiction of a single county and
makes subject to the state board only
those that are in two or more counties,
is to be changed so as to deprive the
local assessing authorities Of all powers
over local railroad corporations.
There is no adequate warrant or ex-
cuse for this change and the p~retexts
urged In its support will not bear in
spection. The only argument made for
the change is that the state board is
better able to arrive at a fair valuation
of this property than the local authori-
ties, presumably because the state board
fixes the. valuations Of railroads which
traverse two or more counties. The
logic of this, however, Is decidedly
faulty. Nothing whatever prevents the
county boards from reaching as good
an estimate of the value of this property
as the state board. In point of fact, the
local authorities ought to be better able
to value railroads in their own county
than the state board, at a distance from
it and unfamiliar with it's character,
condition and special earning powers.
Surely the railroads would not prefer
to have the state board fix the assess
ment rather than the county board un1
less they were convinced that the state
board could be bamboozIed more easily
into agreeing upon valuations below
what they should be.
That there is an African in the wood
pile who has not been brought out goes
without saying. The object in trans
ferring the assessment of railroads en-
tirely within one county from the county
board to the state board is to clinch
more strongly the evasion Of municipal
taxes. There is no question here Of
distribution of terminal values or even
Of rolling stock, because the road is
taxable In n county Jurisdiction only,
and If the basis of valuation of state
and county were approximately the
same there would be no substantial diff
ference as regards state and county
taxes. But by having the assessment
made by the state board these local rail
roads will have the figures certified
down for city taxation In the same
manner as the other tax-shirking rail-
roads, and if the city tax commissioners
continue to assess as they have been
doing, on the 100 per cent basis, while
the state board under the new law will
use a 20 or % per cent basis, these roads
as. well as the others will unload the
greater part of their taxes onto the in
dividual property owner.
TIT interests affected for the present
are the Omaha Belt line and the Omaha
Bridge and Terminal company, both of
which have made strenuous efforts I'm
the last few years to secure recognition
by the state board in order to get away
from county and city assessors. There
is no more reason why these two insti-
tutions, which are wholly within Doug
las county, should be assessed by the
state board than that the banks, or the
department stores, or the stock yards
and packing houses should be likewise
assessed, while the property of the home.
owner and shopkeeper is left subject to
full city and county taxation. The pro-
posed amendment is a tax-shirkIng
scheme pure and simple and should he
spewed out before the bill is put in
final form for passage.