Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1899 — Tax Dodgers In The Amen Corner. [ARTICLE]

Tax Dodgers In The Amen Corner.

The following eleoquent tribute to that noble element of modern society, the "tax dodging gentry,” is from an address delivered at Indianapolis last Wednesday before the State Association of County Assessors, by Hon. Thomas B. Buskirk, senior member of the State Board of tax commissioners: “Another of your important duties is looking after sequestered property. “There are many men who in all else stand well in their communities; men who would scorn to beat a neighbor out of a nickel, but who. seem to look upon it as a matter of course that a man should, if he can, escape taxation, and they resort to all sorts of shifts and subterfuges, even to perjury itself, to escape their just share of the burdensof government, without whose protection they would have security for neither person nor property. “These tax-dodging gentry are not always of the under half of society. Many of them occupy high social position, and are rated as gilt-edged in the business world by Dun and Bradstreet, while many of them, also, occupy front pews in oui houses of worship and the fervor of their appeals to the Throne of Grace on Sunday is in no wise diminished by reason of a hard day’s work in hiding their property from the tax assessor on Saturday. “Asa rule, these tax-dodgers are known of all men. “The county assessor is presumed to know all that the general community knows. Put that knowledge to practical and substantial use, and the hon-est-taxpayers, who are yet in the majority, will rise up and call you blessed.”