The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1913-04-17
LEGISLATIVE LETTER.

LEGISLATIVE LEITER.
Des Moines, April 14.-As the tax
question, which hits the pocketbook,
is one of the most interesting IN
Iowa, the action of the legislature
the past week in respect to state
revenue is worthy OF consideration.
The senate passed the house joint
resolution by Klay providing an
amendment to the constitution to
permit the legislature to designate
certain classes of property for state
taxation only. This means that they
might give the state right to tax
railroads and other corporations for
state revenue and wipe out all state
levy against real and personal prop
erty and moneys and credits, thus
leaving sach county to itself to nix
it's own taxes for local revenue. 1t
would mean enforcement entirely
of state and county and would elm
mate the states concern about IN
equality of taxation as between
counties. 1t would also obvlate the
necessity of expensive executive ma
chinery such as proposed tax COM
mission. In this resolution the. ter
minal tax proposition was decided.
When the resolution came up an Ell
fort was made by senators from the
cities to amend it so as to exempt
cities from it's application. ms
would have meant that cities could
levy taxes against railroads but
counties outside could not. This was
identically the same proposition as
terminal tax which proposed to give
cities the right to the tax on all
railroad property in the city instead
of a mileage distribution of the en-
tire valuation over the entire mile
age. The decisive vote on the pro-
posed amendment to the constitu-
ton amendment resolut' on will prob
ably prevent the terminal tax ever
being called up for consideration.
Then the house passed the senate
bill by Mates giving the executive
council authority to ascertain the val
uation of classes OF property for tax
able purposes. This means that the
executive council has the authority
to hire engineers, experts and help-
ers to make a physical valuation OF
railroads, express companies, tele-
graph and telephone companies In
the states that true valuation may
be established for taxation purposes.
At the present time the executive
council estimates the value OF the
roads from the earnings shown IN
the state.
These two important steps are ab-
soluteIy in controversy to the prln-
ciples in the proposed permanent tax
commission bill and indicate clearly
the overwhelming defeat Of that
plan, The Allen bill, as it is known,
proposed retaining the state tax levy
on real and personal property at full
market value, while it provided fix
ing a value on railroads and other
corporation property upon mere
statements made by officers OF the
corporations and Interested persons,
instead of scientific ad valorem val
uation such as has been given the
executive council authority to make
under the Mates law.
THE SECOND ROAD BILL.
The house defeated the proposed
road bill which was designed to levy
one mill tax for a general fund to
be expended in encouragement to
better roads. 1t was provided that
good roads districts could be or
ganized on the plan OF drainage DIS
tricts and when SO organized the
state would pay from this special
fund forty per cent of the cost Of the
work, providing however, that the
money raised in each county should
remain in that county. 1t further
provided that where township fall
ed to organize road district its
share of the money would be distrib-
uted among the road districts or
gained in the county. After the
failure of the bill a motion to recon-
slider was filed.
ADJOURN THURSDAY, APRIL II.
A concurrent resolution has been
passed by both houses to adjourn
April 18th and that is the date fixed
for the conclusion Of the Thirty-fifth
General Assembly.