Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1919 — STATE G. O. P. NEWS BUREAU [ARTICLE]

STATE G. O. P. NEWS BUREAU

Working Overtime to Convince Taxpay era Taxes Will Not Change. The Republican state news bureau is working overtime nowadays trying to convince the taxpayers how much better It is for them to harve their personal assessments raised away above all reason and 40 to 50% above the actual cash value of the property, and If their taxes are higher under the new law it is because they have waxed so fat in worldly goods during the year 1918 and it is no fault of the Republican tax law or the state board of tax commissioners. It is going to be a hard matter to convince the taxpayer —especially, for example the farmer whose wheat on hand March 1 last was assessed at $2 per bushel —that the action of the board in raising this assessment from 30 to 50% is not assessing him on something that he did not possess. For with wheat at $2.11 per bushel, why should it be assessed for taxation at $1 per bushel more than it will bring after it is hailed to market? Why should a SIOO horse be assessed by the state board at j 150 —$50 more than the local assessor had valued It at when it can't be sold for a dollar more than $100? The same thing is being asked by the taxpayer on many other items of personal property taxabies, all of which have been raised beyond all sense of justice or reason. But the man who has money or notes is not touchedby the state board, and his assefeSment on such ipersonals remains at the figures fixed by the local assessing officers. When the taxpayer goes to pay the first installment of his 1919 taxes next May he will have ample and convincing evidence of whether his taxes have been unreasonably increased or not.