Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1910 — TAX ANOMALY IN MICHIGAN. [ARTICLE]

TAX ANOMALY IN MICHIGAN.

Many Acre* of Land in Marquette County Have No Owner. A peculiar situation with respect to delinquent tax lands exists in Marquette County, a Detroit dispatch to the New York Herald says. There are very large tracts which properly belong to the commonwealth, yet no part of them is included in the public domain. No lands delinquent fox taxes in this county have been formally deeded to the State since 1884. In consequence the county treasurer’s office is lumbered up wth a large number of delinquent land descriptions, on some of which taxes have not been paid since 1881. All these descriptions are offered for sale eaoh year, but no buyers have been forthcoming, and not infrequently the total taxes now charged against the descriptions run into the thousands of dollars. There are 1,600 descriptions delinquent for taxes on record in the treasurer’s office, of which 665 descriptions became delinquent prior to 1906 and could be deeded to the State. These descriptions wity probably average eighty acres each, which means that there are in the neighborhood of 53,000 acres in this county which are properly part of the public domain, but which, as a matter of fact, are not owned by the commonwealth or anybody else. The lands will doubtless be deeded to the State in due time, and will be put on the market, but for the present, with the accumulation of unpaid taxes charged against them, they are unsalable.