The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1916-02-15
YOUR DOLLAR In TAXES.
How 1t Is Spent by thu State ana
Where 1t Comes From.


Did you ever wonder where every
dollar of the money you pay the state
goes to? Take a dollar and divide it
among the various state activities in
proportion to their expenditures and
you viii find that out of every dollar
18c goes to school districts
lie goes to counties
&C goes to the primary departments
of the state government
Ice goes to charities and corrections
soc goes to boards and commissions
sc goes to the new capitol
&c goes for other purposes
Under primary departments comes
the legislature, governor, secretary of
state, attorney-general, state treasurer,
treasury agent, land ONCE, courts, mil
itary department, and maintenance of
capitol. Charities and corrections in
cludes all state institutions for chart
table and penal pu, poses. Of the
state educational institutions the uni
versity gets zoe Of the soc, normals
get &c, and all others get 3. Boards
and commissions Includes all of the
ed under primary departments, for ex-
ample, the tax commission. the rail-
road commission, etc.
Dividing in a slightly different way
we find that nearly half of every dol
lar spent by the stase goes to educa-
tot
expenditures for education by the
state go to the university. 1t is this
relatively large university expenditure
that is responsible for the belief that
the university is getting too large a
share as compared with the common
schools. All aid to common schools
is about 15c
All purely governmental functions,
that is, executive, administrative, leg
islative and judicial departments,
cost zoe of every dollar, not including
the expenditures for the new capitol.
A total of SOC is turned back to minor
civil divisions.
OF almost equal interest with where
the money goes to is the question of
where the money comes from. Divid-
ing as to source we find that of every
dollar
42c comes from the general prop
erty tax
29c comes from the special proper
ty and business tax
hn ,,,1,o
1c comes from the income tax
lie comes from the non-revenue
&c comes from commercial revenue
1c comes from subventions and
grants
sc comes from licenses
Thus tWo-fifths comes from the gen
eral property tax. This varies greatly
from year to year and was exception
ally high in this year. Generally it
would be about half Of this proper
ton. Of the 29c from special proper
ty and business tax 23c comes from
railroad taxes. The remainder comes
from telegraph, telephone, express,
street railway, ETC., companies.
The 1c form the income tax repre-
sents only that portion which is kept
by the state. The non-revenue re-
ceipts represent chiefly trust funds
and agency transactions and are not
true state receipts. Transfers, which
are sometimes included in the totals
for state expenditures, are book tran
sactions only and have been omitted
here Commercial revenue represents
chiefly departmental receipts. Thus
the university received $830,000 from
fees, sales, etc.; the state prison re-
ceived $264,00O; various state depart
ments received payment for services,
etc. Licenes includes RECEIPTS from
business icenses-as corporation,
insurance, professionalism hunting
and fishing licenses, and from minor
sources.
While less thar half of the tax
comes from general property (much
less ordinarily it must be remem-
bered that all others are indirect tax
es, which are just as much taxes on
the people as the direct taxes
Wisconsin Efficiency Bureau