The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-08-29
|R0AD TAX SYSTEM
IS REGARDED LAX
! county Officials Claim that
working Out" Plan Los
es Money to County.

Faults of the system of township
road improvement which permits the
alleged squandering OF many hundreds
OF dollars each year because of the dis
organized method, which necessarily
Ia pursued because Of the present state
statute. are pointed out by county Of
fcials. The officials believe graft is
even possible in the present system
Iof working out road tax.
To escape this alleged misuse OF
road funds and to prevent graft IL any
exists, the county officials are clamor-
ing for the repeal of the present state
! law and the enactment OF a law which
will compel all road taxes to be paid
in tax. The several times this has
been attempted the officials say the
! railroads lobbied against the repeal
and thus defeated the reform.
This spring, including the cash road
worked out. the county received for
the repair of the township turnpikes
approximately $4,000. Officials blunt
ly declare that the roads in this coun-
: ~ do not show that any such enor-
nous sum has been expended for their
! Improvement. although the books give
this impression.
Statute 10 Remiss.
The statute. the officials declare, is
Temiss In that 1t permits lax methods
and gives the tax payers Of all OF the
! townships and three of the town cor
porations opportunity to work out a
certain proportion of the road taxes.
AS the statute Is now the trustee of
each township and his advisory board
fix a special cash road levy and also
1 q larger road levy, which is met by
! the taxpayers working his share out
on the roads" The amount which the
taxpayer pays to the township is pro-
( portional to the amount of property
which he owns. Consequently the
owner Of only a small amount of prop
erty has only a very small amount of
"cash road tax and road work tax"
to meet.
Taxpayers are given credit for road
work tax" at the rate of $3.50 for a
ten hour day per laborer or So day
for driver and team.
The claim that the system Is "a poor
one Ia based on the allegation that on
ly few men with these small road
actually work the tax out. although
the taxpayer always Is given credit
in a reduction from his total tax as
sessment OF the amount of the road
receipt.
The railroads are said to be the
worst offenders. AS taxpayers these
corporations are given the privilege
OF working out the same percentage
CT road taxes as individual tax payers.
JEe railroads will not work out the tax
= having their laborers do it. In
Ltcad they will contract with some
individual to do the work A county
official gave the following example as
an illustration. II the railroads road
work tax amounts to thousand dol
lars, the company will contract with
some individual to do the work for
possibly $500. The company thus
saves $500. The contractor in order
to make profit will actually do less
than $500 worth of work on the roads,
but nevertheless the railroad gets
credit for the thousand dollar tax re-
duction.
Should Pay Taxes.
The officials declare that property
owners should be made to pay their
full amount Of taxes in cash and that
II they wish to work on the roads dur
Ing the slack season that they be paid
In actual cash, not in tax reductions.
BY this method full days work
would be put in. The county officials
also declare that the road improve
ment and construction should be SUI
pervised by a few experts who should
be employed the year round, rather
than by supervisors who work but two
months in the year. Other states have
such system. Oficials declare it
would result In better public highways
II 1t were In vogue here. The officials