The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1921-04-25
Equalizing the Tax Burden;
Five Million a Year

Line and the telephone company
more money per $1,000 of itsproperty
values than other property. The
county officials know this or at least
they have ample opportunity to
know, and ali the public knows that
the assessing has not been properly
done. The Republican administra-
ton and the Republican county CEN
trail committee are in full possession
of the knowledge that the assessing
is being done iii such a way that It
is likely to involve us in liti;ra' ION
I and the county may hare to repay the
money to corporations that have been
paying more than their share of the
taxes. The assessor that has been
getting us into this trouble is now en-
gasea in his seventh year of work
Trder the expressed declaration made
by himself that he will coutinue
about as he has been doing. He will
probably clinch the situation so that
not only will the telephone company,
but the railroad company will come
back at us for the refund of their
money unjustly taken from them.
Banks are protesting on the same
ground that the telephone AND the
railroad companies have been OBJ
jecting. They claim they have been
paying more than their share Of the
taxes, so much more that it may he
necessary for them to put up fight
in the courts to get the matter ad-
justed.
The First National Bank of Weiser
brought such a suit last year to get
an adjustment of it's 1919 taxes and
it won the case. 1t proved that 1t
had been assessed twice as high as
farm lands and other properties in
the county and one-half of the taxes
should be repaid and judgment was
given accordingly. We have banks
in Bingham county and we have
other corporations that have no vote
in the county but which can be as
sessed The practice of the assessors
in ignoring the rights of corporations
and assessing them twice as high as
they do other people just because
they have no vote and let the other
people do the voting is going to come
to an end one of these days. In 1920
the banks of Bingham county made
protest to the county commission
ers on this same line of reasoning
land secured some release from the
taxation. 1t was not very satisfactory
because they did not consider that
they had been placed on equal basis
with other people and other property
owners.
The people of Bingham county
thought it was pretty tough to sell
bonds for 100000 to get money for
roads and then have some of the
money wasted for the expense for
grades too high and in scooping out
borrow pits deeper than they
thought was necessary. If the tele-
phone company, the railroad COM
pany, the banks and the sugar COM
pany should all bring suits against
the county for the refund of money
cleaned under double assessments
the county might have to sell another
100000 worth of bonds to pay back
the money to these different corpora
tions; the money that has been taken
liOHi IhcA uuJuoIly anu Cuc COuHLy
would not have cent to show for it
after it was paid. The small per-
centage of money that was wasted in
road building would look like a
Christmas present in comparison
with the money borrowed to pay
back these corporations that have
been robbed. This process has been
going on for number of years under
the administration of the present as
SCISSOR and as we gather the informa-
ton we are passing it out to the
public. The public can do as they |
please about it, but sooner or later
there will be day of reckoning. We
call attention to the fact that it is a |
Republican administration and that |
the Republican county central COM
mittee has the information that |
things are going wrong. They have
our word for it that such suits |
are likely to be brought to compel |
the refunding of money. The Re-
publican central committee is not do
ing anything to correct the NAL
administration of the assessor.