The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1905-07-28
TnE KIMBALLG
cLATE T1NAN
Official Paper Of the CITY and County
TAXING MONEY AND CREDITS

horses, muleS, COWS. Sneep, hogs,
wagons, machinery, factories, house
hold goods, and all forms of real and
personal property that are optical
bears the burden of nearly the entire
tax of the country.-Mitchell Gazette.
Could there be a more forclble pre-
sentation of the folly of attempting to
enforce a revenue measure which
public sentiment everywhere utterly
r%epudiates' Strange that it does not
occur to the Gazette that the fault is
in the law and not in the tax gatherers
who do not enforce it.
The proposal to release moneys and
credits wholly from taxation will seem
to many people, upon first thought, to.
be a sweeping measure to establish
permanent faycritism to wealth, but
upon investigation it will be found
that the benefits of such a policy can
not be absorbed by money lenders,
but will inevitably be distributed to
the entire community through the
advantages of lower rates of interest.
In considering any system of taxa
tion il is necessary to inquire not
merely who pays the tax into the
public treasury but where the burden
of payment finally rests, also the eflc-
iency OF the tax, or, in other words,
the accuracy with which it can be
collected and the cost of collecting it.
The attempts to tax moneys and
credits have never been justified by
the returns-with the tax ferrets or
without them. Without the ferrets
the law is a farce, with them it is an
a~bomination. The fact that 1T is
necessary to resort to such eXtraordi-
nary methods of collection as the
employment of the so7called tax fer
rets in evidence that the system of
taxation is an unwise one and that
true remedy is in abandoning the
levy.
The Gazette's dissertation, of which
The above excerpt is the opening state
graph, is prompted from the action Of:
the Mitchell board Of equalization in
eXpunging from the assessors books
all moneys and credits listed, over
halt of which had been dug up from
the records in the court house. All
told the sum was sl35.Ooo Meanwhile
the Mitchell banks show a daily de-
posi5 balance Of about ST., 600. 900. Ad-
hitting that % per cent of this is
outside money it would Still leave
$4,000 belonging to Mitchell and
Dawson county people-s50O,G GOO of
which may safely be credited to Nit.
chell alone. And yet if the Gazette
could have Its way it would place a
tax OF so mills Tor 5 per cent? against
the s65, 1000 listed and the $4,000 dug
out by the ferret from the Dawson
county records while half a million or
SO bank deposits 90 scot free from the
lack Of any law through which ar
assessor or tax ferret could list them
Under the circumstances it would
seem that the Mitchell board Of
Equalization did the wise thing SO Ions
las there wa ample evidence that but
a small part of the moneys and credit:
belonging to the town could be locat
ed. The rank injustice OF taxing
money and credits from 5 to s per cen
when the holders of the bank deposit
and mortgages are realizing from 3 tt
s per cent needs no extended CON
ment.
The problem OF taxation is a per
: picking one, and 1T is so easy for me-
to differ honestly over it that the dis
cussion should be in a liberal spirit
)The inference by reformers of tn
Gazette stamp: that intangible AM
invisible property escaping taxation i
all in the hands of the rich and well
TODD is far from the truth. II tn
Gazette should institute a careful in
vestigation it would discover that
good big share of the Mitchell ban.
deposits belong to people of SINAI
means and that more than one mort
gage recorded IN the Dawson cour
house represents the slender incom