People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1897 — Who Doesn’t Pay His Taxes? [ARTICLE]

Who Doesn’t Pay His Taxes?

At a banquet tendered the members of the Illinois legislature by the Civic Federation of Chicago a few evening ago. President Baker of the latter organization, in his introductory address, -said, among other things: In 1873 Chicago had approximately a population of 300, 000; then our assessment was $277,000,000. Now we number nearly 2,000,000 and our assessment is 11 1-2 per cent, under $277,000,000. v Think of what that statement means. Think of the hundred thousand homes the workingmen of Chicago have built since 1873. Thick of the hundreds of thousand of homes erected by the lawyers and docters and business men in general during the past twenty-three years. Is there a Chicago workingman who is exempt from taxation? Is there a Chicago lawyer or doctor or merchant who is not paying higher taxes than his fellows did in 1873? Who is it that doesn’t pay bis taxes? On pages 91 and 92 or the Eighth Biennial Report of the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics is a story told in figures which reveals one of the methods employed to bring about results referred to by Mr. Baker. We may safely reckon that the experiences given have been repeated many times over by other wealthy Chicago landlords. In brief. Potter Palmer bought in 1882 twenty-two lots on Chicago’s famous Lake Shore drive, paying therefore $90,696. In 1885 the market value of the property had increased to $198,187, but the assessor’s valuation of it had decreased to SIO,OBO. What purpose that SBO was to serve, except to hoodwink the people, does not appear. In 1893 rhe figures at which the property was held reached $505,500. Of course, the assessor was compelled to recognize this great raise, a.id so fixed the assessment at $34,780. The percentage of increase in value from 1882 to 1893 was 5,56.59; the percentage of increase in assessment during the same time was 76.55. Is there any wonder that the plain people who live by the sweat of their brow are disheartened and insist that the government aids the rich and crushes out the poor, when such ■ conditions as these are shown of record? What is the remedy?

A simple form of taxation which shall make it impossible to cover up anything whatsoever, based upon something open to the eyes of all the world, in which no assessor’s action may have influence, and which no man’s perjured affidavit can change. Mixed realty (land and improvements) have been found an easy aid to fraudulent assessments; the income tax has developed perjures, but never an honest and equal taxation; personal property tax is a delusion and a snare, for the poor man pays on his piano always, but a Chicago paper the other day declared there were no diamonds to be found by the assessor on Drexel boulevard, one of Chicago’s most famous and wealthy residence avenues! Where lies the remedy? Has anything more perfect than the natural taxation of land values ever been devised by man to correct giant evil, which is the destruction of the poor?