The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1913-08-20
Barre Board of Civil Au-
thority Vote Rebate to
Six Taxpayers 4
CONTRARY TO OPINION
OF ATTY GENERAL
The Result Was Z to 6 Last
Night, Chairman Cast
ing the Deciding Vote
After another extended wrangle

Attorney General Browns opipi ,>sn
the five per cent exemption f. >Ssaxa-
tion law, the Barre board Of s author
ity at the city courtre Saast night
again went contrariwi - that opinion
and voted rebate otssNl2 taxes to six
persons who had appealed for relief on
the ground that their five per cent loans
were not taxable. This was carried bv
a vote of to g. Chairman +. G. How
land being called upon to break lie
vote of 9 to 6, which he did by voting
in favor Of the rebate, as the final vote
indicates
Last nights action follows a vote sey.
eral weeks ago in which the board re-
moved from taxation several five per
cent loans, on which legal appeals had
been made. The petitions for relief en-
tered last night were made by Fred d.
Beckley, G. L. Currier, Fred L. Page,
Florence L. Smith, Mrs. Eta Leonard
and Helen r. Whittier. The most cx-
tended argument in favor of granting
relief to those taxpayers was made by
Judge II. w. Scott, who contended that
Attorney General Brown had taken
narrow view of the law, view not in-
tended by the legislature and view not
followed by a majority OF the towns of
the state City Clerk Mackay thought
so per cent OF the towns had not fol-
lowed the attorney generals ruling. City
Assessor Martin Riley was one of the
chief contenders for sustaining the at
torney general and he maintained that
under the reading of the statutes the
board had no right to grant relief in the
cases mentioned because "no manifest
error had been found.
On viva voce vote the chair was in
doubt, which caused standing vote to
be taken on the motion to dismiss the
six appeals. 1t resulted in a tie, and
Chairman Rowland then voted with The
negative, refusing to dismiss the ap-
peals; whereupon another standing vote,
which was to grant rebates, resulted in
another tie and was again broken by
Chairman Rowland in favor of rebating
those six taxes.
Other Kinds of Appeals.
A large number of appeals of other
nature were heard, most OF them being
for poll taxes. One case not included
in that list was that of the Tenney
service protesting against duplication
of taxation on the Vermont Power &
Co. City Clerk Maekay eX-
planned that it was a duplication be-
cause at the time the lists were taken
no instruments had been filed showing
the transfer of the Vermont P. & l.. Co.
to the Tenney service, so that list
was made out against the former con-
cern, when as matter of fact the Ten
nev service had included the Vermont
p. & l.. Co. property in its inventory.
incidentally, Mr.. Maekay stated that the
Tennev service was paying four times
more taxes this year than last. Abate-
ment of the duplicated Vermont P. & J..
Co. tax was voted. Attorney c. H. Sem
ter of Montpelier appeared for the COM
pany.
George W. Mann protested against an
assessment of 500 on "chickenhouse'
off Wiley street when the structure cost
but sl7. Dismissed.
Mrs. Cora Boyce claimed rebate on
taxation of her property ON Academy
street, claiming generalization OF Sl,00O
tax on that amount having been re-
bated ever since the quadrennial apprais-
Al. A motion to dismiss the appeal
failed and then a rebate on $1,000 ap'
praisal was granted.
Cerillo Palaoro claimed he was taxed
,n 81 900 personal estate when It should
have been 5000. He had a spokesman
and about half an hour was given to
The case, after which it was voted to
dismiss the petition. Paloaro runs a
small granite business.
Another discussion took place over the
request of Harry Fisher for rebate Of
,oiI tax, paid under protest, his petition
,eing made on the ground that he is
student at Norwich university and ex-
,mpt from payment of poll tax under
he military service law. On motion to
lismiss. the vote stood to against
dismissal; then a motion to rebate was
urned down, after which another mo-
ion to rebate was carried, to 6.
Herbert LaPier pays a poll tax in
Barre Town and a city tax on four lots
nd was assessed for poll tax in ths
itv. which he asked rebated on the
round that he is resident of Barre
Town and pays poll tax there. Related,
George Gilman of Claremont, n. H.
vrote a letter, protesting against being
included in the delinquent taxpayers list
or a 1905 poll tax when he hadn't been
otified he owed the tax to the city
nd, therefore, hadn't had a chance to
ay the tax. At a previous meeting
f the board this tax had been abated
rom the books Of former Collector Mich.
Is. and at that time there was consid.
rable doubt as to the identity of the
erson named. Mr.. Gilman wrote that
e was a resident in Barre about that
ime but didn't know he had been taxed
ecause he had received no notification
-hatever, intimating that he stood ready
o pay when told the amount. The
GARD last night took no action, as il
fConfinued on fourth paoels -.