The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1907-01-03
Electric Railway Representatives
Meeting Railway Commission
on Taxation Problems
NEW LAW UNSATISFACTORY
Railway Will Pay Taxes Under the Law
Next Year But an Effort Will be
Made to Change it at the Meet
ing of the Next Legislature

Considerable difference of opinions
developed at conference between
the Wisconsin tax commission and
seventeen representatives of the prin-
cipa1 street and interurban railroad
companies of the state held at Madi.
son Thursday regarding the best
method of ascertaining the actual
value of the property of such corpora
tons for purposes of taxation under
the new ad valorem taxation law
passed by the last legislature. Under
the new law the commission is re-
quired to fix the value ofia company's
road in each countya and each town,
city and village within or through
which it runs.
The commission suggested that
perhaps the best method for doing
this would be to find the receipts for
each such district by counting the
passengers at certain points on the
road for certain periods of time.
The railroad men declare. that such
thing would be practically impos-
sible as traffic is neutrality-suspicious.
and the majority of men IN charge of
cars do not have the time or.capacity
to do such work. Even special agents
placed on cars for that work would
not be able to do it accurately, and
even if they did the result would not
show the average gross received as
the periods in which the counts were
made would snot last long enough to
insure approximately correctsfgures.
The best way of determining sthe re-
ceipts for any given 1engthEof road,
the railroad men said, was to divide
the gross receipts of the entire road
by its total mileage, making due
allowances for density of population
of the several districts Through which
the road passes.
When the conference opened Chair
man Gibson of the commission ex.
planned the purpose of the meeting,
ran over the provisions of the new
law and then suggested the counting
scheme for partitioning the traffic
among the different assessment dist
riots or county, city, village, and
town districts within FOR through
which the roads ran. He said that
this scheme had been worked out by
Prof. w. d. Pence of the State Uni
versity, consulting engineer gof the
commission. He said that the COM
mission would like to have each road
report the amount of its stock and
bonds, their market value and its
gross earnings for period of FIVE
years, or if it had not been in exis-
tence that long, for the time it had
been in existence.
Attorney Roy F. Wilcox, of Eau
Claire, former State Senator H. I,
Weed of Oshkosh, Herbert Warren of
Duluth, and c. N. Duffy of Milwau-
kee did most of the talking for the
railroad men. They had held an in
formal conference al the Park Hotel
before the conference opened, and
unanimously decided that the best
way of ascertaining the passenger
traffic in each assessment district was
to divide the gross receipts of COM
pany by its mileage, making proper
allowances for the population of the
different districts. Mr.. Duffy made
particularly strong impression on the
commission. Prof. Pence was pres
ent and engaged IN the discussion.
At the conclusion of the meeting
Thursday evening Chairman ellison
thanked the railroad men for their
suggestions and expressed the hope
that they would continue to cooper
ate with the commission in the work
of reaching fair assessment of the
roads under the new law. The roads
will pay taxes under the new law next
year. At present they are paying
license fee based on gross earnings.
William M. Smith of Sheldon, Iowa,
who was injured at Cor1iss on Sunday.
while on the way to the funeral of his
brother, the late Benjamin Smith, re-
gained cons ciousness Thursday even
ing and is now considered out of dam
ger. He is at the ST. Mary's hospital
in Racine and it will be many weeks
before he can return to his home in
Sheldon.