The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-09-13
A HOPELESS UNDERTAKING.

A HOPELESS UNDERTAKING.
The county board Of equalization
made a holy show of itself, without
benefit to the taxpayer or to anybody
save its members, in the shape of some
chunks Of salary. We do not believe
that the state board will leave SINH
it might do if it followed some of the
advice that has been given to 1t by
state officials, with more reference to
the sound of it in the public ear than
to the consequences Of it If followed.
The board of equalization can do a
valuable service along right lines. 1t
can reject obviously incomplete lists as
furnished by the several counties 1t
can correct obviously improper valua-
tons. 1t can do just what it's name
implies; secure that equality between
man and man, as far as the matter
comes before 1t, which is the essence Of
just taxation. But it cannot reform
bad tax system or create a new tax
law or work any Of the other impossi-
bilities that have been suggested to it.
The real difficulty about the taxation
Of personal property is beyond this
board, and has thus far been beyond
the legislature itself. The cause Of it
Is found in the changed and changing
form Of wealth. The progress of in
dustry has not revolutionized machin-
cry more thoroughly than it has the
wealth of the people and the forms
under which that wealth is represented.
But tax Systems have not been chang
ed to correspond. The law still includes
personal property within one broad
classification and imposes on it a uni
form duty, as If it were of uniform
nature or value. 1t is about the same
thing as taxing all real estate, in coun-
try or city, at so much per acre, with
out reference to It's value. The owner
Of the less valuable tracts would have
to choose between evasion and confis-
cation.
That choice has been put before the
holder of personal property, and he has
very generally preferred to evade. This
is true Of all our states. Nowhere Is
the personal property tax a success.
Nowhere do the returns from 1t corre-
spond with the growth of population
or the increase Of general wealth.
Everywhere the ratio Of the personal
property payment to the total tax re-
cefpts grows less; and everywhere does
the burden of 1t fall more and more
upon those who can least afford to pay;
upon the farmer and mechanic, upon
stock and farm machinery, upon the
little deposit IN the savings bank, upon
| the watch and the sewing machine and
the piano. The property that consti-
| tutes the vast bulk of modern wealth
! escapes.
1t escapes not because men are in
! herently dishonest, but because the tax
laws are so obsolete as to be Ubiquitous.
| The attempt to conf1scate by taxation
| will never succeed. The people will not
bear it. Sooner than suffer great in
justice they will conceal their holdings;
and that is what they are doing and
have been doing the country over for
| years. They hide it and evade the tax
collector because the valuation and as
sessment which the law requires, if
made literally, would tax their prop
erty at rate unheard of and out of all
proportion to that paid by other forms
| of wealth.
Now we cannot remedy the failure to
4 locate and tax one slzind Of property, a
failure not peculiar to Minnesota but
common to the whole country,-by bur-
dening another unduly. Because some
wealth has become invisible, 1t is not
in order to double the assessment of
| that which cannot be concealed That
! is not Justice and it Is not sensible tax
1 alton. For, exactly as we have seen,
no form of property can be taxed I'M
fairly for long. The owners will put 1t
Into other forms, and the community
alone will suffer.
Therefore it is plain that the board
of equalization cannot accomplish the
work of remedying an inherently in
sufficient and dilapidated tax system
by great severity in administering it.
Such severity merely defeats its own
object. Nor can pious talks about tax
alton and the duty of the citizen helm
one whit in an embarrassment that