Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1908-07-30

tories o. file have no sign of an answer
or other mark inside; many made
up and even signed by listers themselves
there are three or four cases in which
savings banks deposits were not de-
Quoted from offsets" In another town,
ton Inventories had no mark at all in
side, ninety-two were simply signed ana
sworn to but not n single question an
swered In some fifty or more towns the
listers failed to assess all the personal
property that was reported in the in
ventories
A CORPORATION SWGNDLE.
In one town n wealthy corpora ton
having more than 100000 in real estate
and personal property filed no inven-
tory; the only Inventory" 90 on hlo
consists of letter written by the stem
orrapher of the president of the corpora
tion saying IN substance. The president
is not at home but 1 have received a
letter from him in which he says he
thinks our list ought to be about the
same as last year-sfro That letter Is
on file as an Inventory" in the town
clerks office. Tho town is poor with a
high rate of taxation and by this tran
saction has lost from its list more than
500, COO.
one evil known to exist is that just
before the first of April personal property
is purchased without the state, not to be
shipped into the State or paid for until
after the first of April, that the pur-
chaser can offset the debt so contracted
against his personal property In the
State. which without that debt would
be taxed here. To ascertain the extent
OF this evil we caused the following
question to be inserted in the 1907 nven-
tories:
What amount of such offset is for
personal property purchased by you but
not in this State on the first day of
April, 1902?
ONE-THIRD DEBTS OUTSIDE THE
STATE
TINS question was not answered very
fully, but we caused our agents to IN
vestigate as to how many debts declared
in offset were said to be due to credit
ors outside the StRte and we found
that about one-third OF all the offsets
allowed against personal property was
for debts ing without the State, and
although the list was far from complete
the amount so reported was twelve
million dollars in round numbers.
We find It Is the custom with many
merchants, in the month of March, to
purchase merchandise on credit in New
York, Boston, and other wholesale cent .
ers. ordering IT not to Ne shipped until
after the first day Of April and then
offset the debt so contracted against their
stock in trade or other personal property.
one such case will suffice - indicate to
what extent some men will go to avoid
their honest share of the burden of tax
alton. A merchant. as shown by his In
ventory, had stock OF merchandise
appraised at 5000; he also had bank
stock to the value Of $500 He swOre
in his inventory that ne was owing for
merchandise then outside the State over
$1,000 and so his stock in trade, 5000.
out OF his grand list and he escaped
paving taxes on any personal property.
Many inventories neither signed no.
sworn to were accepted where the off
sets clc med more than equalled the per-
sonal property OF the taxpayer.
In no county in the state does the
amount OF taxable property returned by
the town clerks to the secretary of State
correspond with the amount of taxable
property as shown by the inventories.
The foregoing instances are only few
OF the many that have been found by us,
all OF which tend strongly to show thai
ent tax law are largely ignored and