The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1912-02-09
Tax Topics Discussed.

Henry Seymour, secretary of the
state board of equalization, received
much attention from fair crowd of
farmers and citizens, including large
of business men, who came to
hear his address on 'Undervaluations
in Nebraska"
"Undervaluations in Nebraska for
taxation purposes as well as in other
states of the union and the consequent
injustice and inequality in taxation as
between individual taxpayers is the
fundamental cause for practically all
of the present day agitation regarding
ways and means of raising revenue
for the support of the governments,
both state and local" said Mr.. Sey-
mour.
"Undervaluation is the beloved
child of the tax dodger, caressed and
nurtured by him and never old enough
to be allowed to leave home.
"In 1903 the work of the tax dodger
had become so coarse that the calcu-
lations, returned under his system,
had put our state in debt something
like $2,000,000 and many counties and
cities, as we'll as school districts, were
facing a crisis. No available funds,
and warrants long outstanding Some
thing had to be done-and that soon.
The people arose enmaSse and elected
legislature that would make a law
which would do away with the farce
which was being enacted at that time
in the manner of possessing property
for taxation and Mr.. TaXdOdger could
not help himself. The results of the
new law were amazing. From a total
valuation shown on the tax rolls of
1903 (the last year under the old law
of $1SS,45S,379 the valuation inCreas-
ing in the first year under the new
law to 81, $1,473S96,220. You will notice
that property had been valued at
about 13 per cent of its actual value,
if the 1904 value was high enough,
and whom do you think was hit the
hardest? The small farmer or the
one with large amounts of grain, live
stock etc?
ITO be sure | know that much prop
erty escaped but | want to illustrate.
The man who was worth 100000 pro-
viding it was not all invested in real
estate, which is always in sight and
cannot escape the assessor, and VINO
mad been getting off with an assess
ment of $4,000 to $4,000 or not to
exceed % per cent of his real wealth,
was raised perhaps to 70 per cent OF
1. ~, MT
and assessed at 80 per cent of his
wealth, was raised to perhaps so per
cent of the same. You will notice that
the increase in the assessed value of
the property of the man with SMALL
property was perhaps 80 per cent
while the increase in the value of the
property of the man with large means
was at least 80 per cent"
Tax System Breeds Dishonesty.
In leading the discussion on the ad
dress of Mr.. Seymour d, Rees of this
city said
"Our system of taxation, like our
tariff system and our postal system
has in my judgment, more or less a
| tendency to make men dishonest. Es
pecially do | believe this to be true in
our tariff and postal laws and the
primary cause of our trouble is with
the general government at Washing
ton where the laws have been foI
many years so constructed that a few
men have been benefited by them
at the expense of the rest of us.
There is said to be on file in Mad
ison county, a statement from the rail
road company to the effect that farm
lands in this county are valued by the
assessor on an average of only As pei
cent of their actual cash transfer
sales and only one-tifth of this amOun
is taken for the assessed value, bu
the farmer is probably no more a sin
ner, if as much, than his fellow Citi
zen in the town. When the assessor
comes around with his long list of tax
able personal property, how easy it il
for all of us to forget that we have
what we have, and TO put a value OF
our property less than its real worth