The Daily Alaska empire., 1950-06-15
"WHAT A REFUND!" DEPUTY AUDITOR OF HAWAII TALKS TAXES.

l
 claimed the Deputy Auditor of Ha-
 waii, after talking to the Assistant
 Auditor of Alaska.
 Tn the recent years of our half- l century as a territory, we have ! averaged about $l00,000,000 a year ] in federal income tax collections-I think we'd get about two billion | back"
 Karel Hunter Sheecha of Homo lulu was translating into terms ot | his own territory the challenge made by Neil Moore of Juneau that the federal income tax is discriminatory against Territorial citizens. Taxes in Hawaii?" Sheecha echoed questioner later. Taxes? There's no end of 'em. Our greater revenue-producer is the gross income tax on all busi- approximately 2la percent which corresponds to a sales and service tax.
 Our main source of county in- come is the real property tax. For Honolulu and Oahu Island (city and county the rate is approxi- mately $50 per $1 ,000 valuation, al though it runs as high as S3S in some cases.
 Tn the Hawaiian tax structure, '
 he added, "a personal income tax
 of from ? to 10 percent of net ln- come interlocks with a tax on all compensation (salaries and wages) which has withholding provisions. :"
 At this point, the visitor professed himself more interested in the beauties of Juneau and environs, saying, Besides, I'm no tax expert my work is concerned only with the accounting and where the money goes. Anything I say about Alaska taxes or statehood is purely from surface observation"
 He said he came here With the idea that Alaska cannot be de- veloped and settled until statehood is achieved, but that he wants to get the picture in dollars and cents of costs.
 Sheecha, who arrived |, on the Alaska, will sail westward Tuesday aboard the Aleutian, to visit the Kenai Peninsula and the Interior while on his first trip to Alaska.
 He is enjoying a reunion with a friend of University of Chicago days. Dr. Frank Maresh, whom he had not seen for II years. Both are at the Juneau Hotel. Dr. Maresh, medical officer for the Alaska Ma tive Service, and specialist in tu- berculosis, now is attached to the Government hospital here.
 Both are of Czeko-S -Slovak origin. Dr. Maresh is third-generation American, but his friend, Sheecha. was born in Prague.
 How did a native Czech achieve a high position in the government
 of Hawaii? Sheecha answers by saying, simply, T took the civil service examinations.
 There was little more to it than
 that.
 Little dreaming that he was start ing an eventful career which would
 even result in a change of citizen ship, Sheecha went to work in
 Prague for the Standard Oil Com
 pany of New Jersey when that firm began activities in Central Europe. After three years, he was transfer red to Mexico, later to Venezuela, Colombia and Peru, then to Paris and other European posts. Meantime, he returned to Prague for compulsory military duty, and he served with the Austrian Army in World War I.
 In 1892, Sheecha came to the United States, and studied in Phila- delphia and at the University of Chicago, where he and Dr. Maresh lived in the same dormitory. Nat urally, their mutual Czech heritage was a common bond, and they have been firm friends since those days.
 After being stationed at Aruba, off the South American coast. Sheecha went to Hawaii and settled
 on a sugar plantation in an execu- tive capacity. He received his final American citizenship papers in 1888.
 Transferring to the Matson Line, his work dealt in management Of hotels and clubs. These were taken over by the Army and Navy during the war, so Sheecha went to work for a concrete company. When this was liquidated in 1945, he took his