Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1929-11-28

as possible of the land now not pay
| ing and to keep more and more from
going delinquent every year. What
ever of this valuation, now not paying,
| one could get back on the paying rolls
even at reduced valuation would
| help just that much to Tighten the
| burden upon what is now paying. Re-
member the land now paying is
| carrying the entire burden of public
expenses at the present time. The
| work of securing propositions for set
Element of back taxes would be merely
incidental to the more important work
which alone would give permanent re-
| lief and which strikes at the very
root of our delinquency troubles.
| | do not know of any of the advo-
Gates of this proposed work who
claims to be or could qualify in any
way as SHARP shooter" some of us
have been called square shooters" in
our small public activities, but ! do
not know of any one of the crowd
who is out cunning" for any one; the
only desire of those who are interested
/ i'm this work and who have been active
in forming the Pine County Tax
| League is to perform much needed
public service and to relieve the grow
ing tax burdens of Pine county so it
will no longer endanger the cOnfisca-
ton of our homes and farms, many of
which represent the work of a life
time. | am sure if Mr.. Zigmant could
| fully understand our motives and the
crying need of the work contemplated
he would be one of our strongest ad-
vocateS.
Mr.. Zigmant has fallen into COM
| mon error in his discussion of rates
and assessed valuation and that is
that it makes no difference what valu-
atiOns we place as it would only raise
or lower the rate required to raise
certain amount levied. This would
of course be true IF ALL PROPERTY
WAS PAYING TAXES but when we
are dealing with the delinquency
problem it makes a great deal of diff
ference.
Take this little problem in arith-
metic to illustrate the point, suppose
in a certain township these are the
| facts and these figures are approx
mately true of a number of towns in
northern Minnesota:
The assessed valuation of the land
in this township as carried on the
books, is say, S125,OOO.
Of this amount there is paying taxes
$4,000 and there is delinquent and not
paying and under present conditions
will not be paying, $4,000.
There is levied against this proper
ty tax rate of 100 mills From this
levy we get from the $4,000 paying
valuation $4,000. We get from the
non-paying $4,000 of valuation-Noth-
ing. Now we could strike from the
tax rolls the entire $4,000 non-paying
and reduce our valuation to $4,000
and we would still get the $4,000 We
could raise the valuation of the $4,000 |
to S1,OOO,0O0 or any larger amount and
it would still be non-paying.
But we could reduce the assessed
valuation of the $4,000 to a point
where it would pay; suppose $4,000
of it is hopeless but the other $50, 900 |
had become delinquent because it was
loaded too heavily; suppose then we
readjust the values on this land so
that we get valuation of only half
or $4,000 which would pay taxes.
Now we have a paying valuation of |
$4,000 and to raise the $4,000 on this |
valuation would only require &C 2-3 |
mills, or we have cut the taxes on the |
former paying valuation one third |
Is not this worth working for?
The county with a rate of approx
mately 20 mills would in the first in
stance get only $1,000 from this town, |
but after the REIMBURSEMENT would get |
81, 500 from the town and would con-
tinue to get this every year.
Remember, every cent you get from |
the dead valuation helps to tighten
the burden on what is left paying and
the property on which at the present
the entire load rests
When one considers that over 300,-
900 acres of land in Pine county is
now delinquent and growing from year
to year, representing an assessed valu-
alton of approximately $1,5OO,O0O now
dead and not carrying any of the
tax load and there is a possibility
of getting back onto the tax rolls a
considerable amount of this valuation,
the question becomes so large that the
talk of penny economy in refusing to
help such work is absolutely ridicu-
lous.