The Paducah sun. [volume] (Paducah, Ky.) 1898-1906, 1905-02-25
Say the County Clerk and AS
SCISSOR Made Errors.
Mistakes Have Becn Made Resulting
In Ovcrchargcs In Excess Of
One Thousand Dollars.
TWO STATEMENTS GIVEN OUT

Attorneys for Sheriff Lee Potter
this afternoon gave out two state
ments, which speak for themselves,
and are as follows:
The statement OF Attorneys Vince
Ter. Hughes and Berry, and Bloom
field a Crice, is:
1--WE have examined the books of
Mr.. Potter. the sheriff of the county,
for 1908. and know their condition.
II will not be shown that Mr.. Pot
ter has collected. arbitrarily. taxes
from any citizen of McCracken coun-
ty. and many one who makes such a
charge is actuated by either ignor-
ance or malice. The report of the
state inspector now examining the
books of the sheriff will verify what
we say.
Section 4239 of the Kentucky
statutes provides that the county
clerk shall make out for the use of
the sheriff a correct list of all taxa
BILE property as assessed and super
vised, and deliver same to the sher-
in and take his receipt for same;
therefore. the book that was made
out and delivered by the clerk to the
sheriff should not have contained any
property exempted from taxation but
II should have contained only the
property assessed for taxation.
I'm our examination of the sheriff's
books we find that the book as act
ually made out by the clerk and de-
ivered to the sheriff, contained in
many instances. property that was
exempt from taxation, and the asses
sor and clerk, in making their ex-
tension into the total column, in
several instances took the exemp-
lions off and in numerous instances
failed to take them of; and in this
way the total column did not bal
anee with the total amount of the
extensions, however. when the sher-
in came to compute his taxes, where
the total column did not balancewith
the extension, he collected
taxes on the true amount of the ex-
tensions, and thus he included ex-
empted property in S26 lists and
collected taxes on IL.
This is the sum total of his offend
ing, and an examination of the
books will demonstrate its truth,
and the total amount collected by
him on such exempted property will
amount to little in excess of one
thousand dollars,
We, of course, do not mean to say
that there may not now and then
have crept into the calculations made
by the sheriff, an error, but II there
Is such an error we have not found
II. II should be borne in mind that
there are about $1,000 lists in Nc
Cracken county and the sheriff is re-
quired TO make calculations on each
of these lists for the county and state
respectively, making about 10000
calculations.
"The sheriff is now engaged In pre-
pairing a statement showing exactly
each citizen. his name and district,
entitled to exemptions who did not
receive them. by his error. AS soon
as prepared this list will be publish
ed. and each man will be requested
to bring forward his receipt and the
sS,S0 paid on property exempted
from taxation will be refunded but
those hundreds of citizens who were
entitled to exemptions and who did
not receive them by reason of the
failure of the assessor and clerk to
allow them the exemptions, but
charged same to the sheriff, cannot
be reimbursed by the sheriff because
said exemption was charged to the
sheriff, taxes collected thereon by
him. and accounted for to the county
and state respectively"