Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1914-10-01
F IN TAXATION

# E" REFORM IN TAXATION
For decades the American people have annually admitted that
our system of taxation is inequitabe and without especial merit, ex-
cepiDg merely as a means for procuring money with which to meet
public expenditures, and yet annually we have been doing the same
thing over again without any concentrated effort to reach a true
Tic Saturday News approaches this question in no spirit of
f~ault-fnding. 1t cares nothing for men in this connection, nor Of
political parties. 1t has said, and it repeats, that it doubts whether
the people OF South Dakota arc yet ready for II radical departure
from. existing methods.
spt there are evidences that the public mind is awakening to
The fact our puny efforts to reach out and grab a little piece of prop
Dirty here that may have hitherto escaped taxation, or to add a
rial as to be scarcely worth the energy expended.
We have made no material progress in reaching a solution so
Tar as any change in our methods are concerned. We have not
changed our methods at all. We have merely elaborated upon them,
but more especially with reference to the machinery employed than
with respect to the results obtained.
Che Saturday News admits that it may be in advance of the
TIC times Cas- one peasses to term it,, but the time to do . tn thing is to
&c i when one knows that it ought to be done.
The Saturday News cannot understand POSSIBLY it cannot see
things in their true light) why, in our boosted twentieth century
seisilisation, we should deliberately proceed to tax a man for i'm,
growing his neighbours property.
u other words, the farmer settles down on the northeast quar-
fer OF The section and proceeds to construct a large barn, build nun-
prepares a fine school house for the children. He raises cattle and
horses and hogs and sheep His is a model farm home. The asses
severance and his industry. The land is taxed, the fence is taxed,
the cattle and the horses and the hogs and the sheep are taxed, and
At the farmer has any grain stored up it, too, is taxed. 1t is not
on forever.
Tie other three quarters in the same section have never even
lbnen pioWed, nor pastured, nor otherwise improved. They are as
Tsessed at nominal figures as vacant or unused land. And yet their
s IL ] thrifty Il farmer an and f rs thrifty p" esishsors y amt T 'hs labor
What ths Saturday News wants to see brought about is this:
q taxing Of the vacant land upon an equal footing with the land
flhed BY the thrifty farmer; tax no horses, no cattle, no buildings,
no improvements let the two quarters, assuming them to be equal in
pMnt OF productive powers, stand upon an equal footing and pay
taxes alike.
IN lieu OF the taxing OF the improvements and other personal
PROPERTY let there pc a tax upon all incomes, great or small.
The farmers cattle and his stored grain, and his machinery and
ts improyements represent his savings from his income. Why tax
that income every year, again and again9 lie the farmers horse is
ten Years old, and represents his profit for some one year, why not
tax that income Just once and let it go at thatf
Land and Its improvements in South Dakota today are paying
N~eighfyfour per cent of all the taxes of the state, according to stats
hes furnished by men who have given the matter careful consider
ataon- Personal property, including merchandise and corporate
saeocks and chattels OF all other classes, pays only sixteen per cent
of the public revenues In South Dakota.
Why not make d change worth whileG VIII waste time and
means "a tinkering with q system that has been Intellectually tinkered
with for generationsg
III the Saturday News shall be able to arouse the public mind
fo give this question that consideration to which its Importance en-
titles IT, the papers special mission in this respect will have been ac-
eomplished