Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1921-02-11
ANOTHER WORD BOUT
TAXES

TAXES
/ have been greatly interested in thu
| peared III our papers lately with refer
ence to the tax question. No one
doubts for Il moment that our taxes
are extremely high. and no one ques
tons but that they should be lower
There may be Il difference of opinion as
10 where TO conserve or how to lower
| them.
| | TOO came from Minnesota and ii
! that state we had only five county com
| mlSSiOnerS. and no town treaSurerS
| who collected taxes. L he system
seemed to work very well there and
see no reason why it should rot work
| here. Only Il few days ago Il gentle
man in Sawyer county told me that he
| tor his hank) was collecting taxes fOl
five different districts. If this can be
done with the present town treaSurcrS
! don't see why it can't be done with
out them.
noticed in one of the letters. among
other offices that the writer proposed
cutting ont, was that of county assess
or. Later in talking with Il man
asked him what he meant by county
assessor and he referred to the office
Of supervisor Of assessments but there
has been no such office during the past
ZEN years. However. this work has
been done by the Assessor of Incomes.
md possibly some of our people have
referred to this office in their desire to
cut down expenses. As Il matter of
fact, the assessor Of incomes does not
receive one dollar Of his salary from
the town or county. 50 that that would
not make very much difference with
our local taxes. but he receives Il sal
AIRY from the state and you may think
that this tends to make the state tax
higher | have gone over the figures
carefully and. to the best of my knOwl-
edge and belief, during the past ten
years every year the county has re-
ceived more from the state than it has
paid to the state. do not favor state
aid on general principles. however it
seems to have worked out reasonably
we'll as far az RuSk county is CON
ccrncd. Some people claim that the
state aid received is not judiciously eX-
pended and it is very possible that this
is true. but If we get back more than
we pay the state. we need not complain
about our state taxes. | have before
me tax receipt of taxes | paid on for
ty acres Of land. not Il foot of which
has ever been plOWed: distributed as
follows: S214 state tax. S1239 county
fax. Sligo town tax and $1642 school
tax. making Il total tax of $42.5S.
This would indicate that only about >
per cent Of our taxes go to the state to
begin with. and practically every year
the full amount is returned as state
aid According TO the income tax law,
20 per cent Of the income taxes go to
the towns. 20 per cent to the county.
and 10 per cent to the state. Assess
OrS of Income are paid from the pro-
ceedS OF the income tax law. The ma
jOrity Of the income tax comes from
the southern part of the state so that
the northern counties are favored in
this respect. Especially is this true
when we consider that now the assessor
of incomes only receives a small salary
($1 900 to 81 .400) paid by the state.
while III the earlier years the super
visor of assessments received from 5000
to $1,000 depending on the county,
and was paid by the county. As to the
value Of this office we may discuss this
later.
There is one other office that has not
yet received much discussion and that
is the question of the town assessors
vs.. county assessor 1t has been shown
in many cases that one county assess
or working all the year could do much
better work and would be much fairer
in the assessments. and cheaper, than
so many town assessors, where there
are so many conditions tending to
make them unfair. | am not saying
that our assessors are unfair, but there
are many things that do tend to make
them so 4 number of states. have
county assessors and reports that
have heard from these states are ia
vOrable to the plan If a person puts
in his full time on q certain subject he
should become more expert and prof.
cicnt in that line. than where he puts
only a few weeks or perhaps couple
of months of an occasional year IN