Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-05-17
HALF OF CHICAGO
FACES TAX SALE
Bankers and Legislators Seek
Means of Preventing Finan-
CiaI Disaster.


CHICAGO, May 16-More than half
of the property in Chicago today faced
possible sale for taxes and bankers and
legislators sought means to save the
city from financial crisis
Although tax paying was thrown
more than a year behind through a new
system Of assessment, the final day for
payment Of $276,00o,O 900 for 1929 taxes
found $4,000 900 unpaid On this de-
linquent charge property owners must
pay / per cent a month until accounts
are balanced, and at the end of three
months, If still delinquent, the realty
will be listed for tax sale.
Bankers have purchased already
$500 100000 worth of tax warrants to
help the municipality pay current wage
bills. But. with non-payment of fresh
levtes and advice from certain organi-
cations to property owners not to bay
on the ground that the recent assess
ment was illegal, warning was issued
by Melvin A. Traylor, president of the
First National Bank, that more vouch-
ers cannot be marketed, even at the
high rate of per cent.
Appeals have been made to the State
Assembly to change the laws so that a
peter system Of levying taxes might
be enacted
Attorney General Oscar E. Carlstrom
said: The City of Chicago and the
County OF Cook, with its minor taxing
SUBDIVISIONS, are facing a crisis of such
desperate character with respect to pub
Tic finances and taxes that some action
must be conceived and executed without
delay to avoid a complete disaster"
Inc Midwestern metropolis and its
multiple taxing bodies have leaped from
crisis TO crisis since the State Tax Com
mission, discovering "glaring inequali-
Ties IN the 1927 assessments, ordered
re-appratsal. Tax collections fell two
years behind, plunging city, county and
State alike into financial straits, rem
der1ng pay day for school teachers and
other municipal employees uncertain
from month to month and deferring
payment OF mature bond issues.
Relief Plan Proposed.
Attorney General Carlstrom came
forward today with suggestion for
emergency relief.
The city's present unexhausted
bonding power" the attorney general
explained, is approximately $4,000 :
OUO. Iaklng the full value for the
assessed value would increase that
bonding power nearly 1915 900 900,
making possible the amortization of
practically the whole Of the 1890
assessment by retiring the anticipation
warrants, paying the State tax and dis
trlbuting that assessment over a period
Of 20 years" The bonds authorized
would be limited to retiring anticipa-
ton warrants and absorbing existing
deficits.
The Chicago Real Estate Board i'm
mediately Endorsed Carlstroms sugges-
ton. The board supported emergency
legislation at Springfield, which would
extend the delinquency date on 1929
tax payments to July and allow quar-
terly payments on the installment plan.
Meanwhile the Association of Real
Estate Taxpayers, regarding the existing
tax system as evil, has urged property
owners not to pay 1929 taxes pending
the outcome Of litigation 1t has insti-
tuted Meanwhile one of the principal
remedial steps contemplated is the con-
solidation of taxing bodies in Cook
County, where now there are approx
mately so such bodies presided over by
a three-man board Of assessors and a
similar board Of review. Under the pro-
jected amendment township assessors
would be abolished and one assessor
would head the taxing body.