The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-04-18
LETTERS TO EDITOR
The Cure for Increased Taxes

To the Editor of The Age-Herald:
 The board of revenue has notified the people of Jefferson county that taxes are | to be increased; that the rate shall be
 d15, and this without consulting the tax payers at all, and now the board speaks its qualification at no protests being made by the people
 | As Mr. Ramseur says in his letter the people are saying: Whats the use" they's got us, and we can't help our selves" Now l say that they can help themselves, and that they should do so; so long as the people submit to the pres ent system of taxation, just so long will they pay increased taxes on real estate, on personal property. on household goods, ! and everything else that they own; when the people wake up. they will relegate this ancient system of legalized robbery to the limbo of useless things, and will adopt an enlightened system which will be fair to everybody, but the land hog. and the speculator who holds land for nothing in the world but the value created by his industrious neighbor
 The single tax. or a modified form of J taxes; it will force all property owners to pay more nearly on the real value of the land they own, it will work no hard ship on the small property owner and it will force the land hog and the specu- lator to improve his land or sell it, for 1t does not levy tax on the improve ments man places upon land, but looks to the land itself to bear the burden; 1t will force thousands of idle lands into usefulness and into productiveness and will offer inducements to men to stay on the farm and work, and it will make the large owner either sell his lands or inn prove them, and improved land is always an asset to the community while unim- proved land is a liability, and always forces the man who improves his land to bear greater burden of taxation.
 The adoption of the single tax or a modified form which will exempt all forms of improvement from taxation, will remedy the conditions which the taxpay- CTS of the state are grooming under, and it is to be hoped that the enlightened property owners will awaken to the stern necessity of reforming the taxation sys- tenn of the state, and will act as men, and not allow the great property owners, and the land hogs and land spectators to influence them to their advantage and to the great disadvantage of the small owner.
 The plan of the Jefferson county tax reform league is simply this: A flat val uation of 75 per cent of the selling value of land to be assessed against all land, regardless of its location, this to be de- termined by a system of valuation dem- oEstrated successful by it's employment in other sections of the country; a val uation of 25 per cent on Improvements on land; valuation to be made on the cost of the reproduction of such improve ment, absolute exemption of all house. hold goods, bank deposits, live stock, inn plements of soil, mortgages, notes and certain other personal property By the employment of such a system, the league believes that an equitable system of taxa ton will be found, and such a system will remove all impeachment to improve ments to those who desire to improve, and will force those who hold land idle to improve 1t or sell 1t to those who will improve 1t. It is worth thinking over J. B. WOOD.
 Birmingham, April II. 1917.