The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1931-04-03
THE 1Oc TAX
yhow the worst is yet to come.
By HANS RASMUSSEN

By this time l suppose you have all received a
copy of Referendum Measure No. 35, the
are 10 vote on on May 9Th, and l hope you have
not put it in the stove yet. Take it and look it
overt is the darndest piece of lawmal1ng you
ever saw. If it had been manufactured by bunch
of drunken bricdayers it could not be half as bad
as it is In this article 1 will call your attention
to some of the most ridiculous parts in it.
First we must remember that we have law
now Oh. B. No. 9O) which provides for five cent
gasoline tax until March 31st, 1941. They now
come out and say that this law can be repealed by
the next legislature but look what you are voting
for on May 5th Read in Section 4: "That the ex-
else or license tax gasoline motor fuels. . =.
provided in this Act Or any of the other laws
of the State of Montana, shall not be reduced so
long as any of said debentures remain outstanding
and unpaid" and during the IL months next pre-
ceding maturity of said debenture the (the state
treasurer) shall set aside in such fund -. suf-
ficient money to provide for the payment" That
should be plain enough. The tax in THIS law or
any other law not be changed until the last
part of the six million dollars with interest is
paid The last part can not be paid until the year
194O-in that respect the law is clear We can
not get rid of any part of the 10-cent tax until
after 1910.
funds for the payment of interest and the matur-
ing principal of the debentures, every distributor
shall pay for the year beginning April 1st 1881,
and each year thereafter, until March 81, 1941, a
license tax equal to five CENTS and for each year
after March 81 1941 equal to three cents for each
gallon of gasoline" This means an extra five
cent tax for the next 10 years and there is no
other way it can be understood, if you want to
be half way fair about it.
You will notice also that here Tin Sec 81 the
tax is collected for only one purpose: that of pro-
viding funds for the paying back of the six mill
ion dollars with interest. This is done for the
purpose of fooling the people, make them think
that all there will be collected is the six million
dollars with interest which amounts to $7349 100
in all. But then, in Sec 18 they slip in a little
joker, saying: "and for other highway purposes y
That part is overlooked by most people, but gives
them the right to the money for highway pur-
poses.
Let US look at few figures and see what Dor
rowing of six million dollars is leading US into. In
1921 the consumption of gasoline in Montana was
about II million gallons; in 1929 it was about 80
million gallons Each year the consumption haC
increased at the average rate of % per cent II
| 1890 the total amount of tax collected at sc pei
gallon amounted to $S,87S828.42.
We do not know what is going to happen in tht
next few years. We only use the past as
guide for our guesses. We know that we are nov
using five times the amount of gasoline we diC
ten years ago and we know that the consumption
has increased at the average rate of % per cen
per year. Probably it would not be unfair to sa
that the increase for the next ten years would b
20 per cent per year. Anyway, let us use the 2
per cent and the 1O-cent tax and see what our Ia
figures will look like each year.