Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 198, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1913 — $20 IS LIMIT OF ROAD TAX LABOR [ARTICLE]

$20 IS LIMIT OF ROAD TAX LABOR

If Individual or Corporation Owes More It Must Be Paid in Cash t —What Law Provides. Twenty dollars is the limit, under thp new road tax law, which any taxpayer may work out in road taxes in any township, and this fact has been made clear by the state accounting department in a letter written to. David S. Koons, township trustee at Cowan. The letter reads: “No taxpayer may, under the existing law, work out more than S2O of road taxes in the township. The law does not apply to districts, but to the township as a whole, and S2O is the limit that county treasurers may give any taxpayer credit for on such account.” Under the old road tax law, which was repealed by the new law of 1913, any taxpayer could work out all his road tax instead of paying It in cash. This system produced a huge system of graft because many of the large taxpayers, such as railroads and other big corporations, “farmed out” their road tax under contract to road contractors who did the work for them. It was charged for years that under this system the townships did not receive the amount of work on their roads that they were entitled to, but that in many instances the work actually done did not amount to more than 60 per cent of the amount of the road tax. Some persons have had the idea that the new law means that a taxpayer may work out S2O worth of road tax in each road district of the township, but the state accounting department says this is not the correct interpretation of the law. The part of the new statute which relates to this subject reads as follows, being the first part of section 18 of House Bill 603, published on page 871 of the acts of 1913: ‘The township advisory board, on an estimate made by the township trustee, shall levy annually oh or before the first Tuesday in June, a road tax of not more than 30 cents on each SIOO to be levied according to the amount of real and personal property owned in such township, outside the corporate cities and towns subject to taxation for road purposes, to be collected as other taxes are collected, except all road taxes are to be collected with the first yearly insta'llment of taxes: Provided, that any person or corporation owing taxes so assessed on real estate shall be permitted to work out the same up to the amount of S2O as nearly as practicable in the road district in which such real estate lies, and on taxes so assessed on personal property the person owing the same shall be permitted to work out the same up to the amount of S2O in the district where the owner resides. Said tax to be worked out at the rate of $1.50 per day for each man.” The state accounting department is of the opinion that the law is sufficiently plain to inform any one of its meaning. Another point in regard to the care of highways was the subject of a letter which the department wrote to W. F. Smith, township trustee at Pittsburg, Ind. The letter says: ‘Township trustees have no duty to perform with respect to roads that are under the supervision of the board of county commissioners acting as a board of turnpike directors. The cutting of weeds along such roads is a matter for the attention of the superintendent assigned thereto.”