The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 23, 1919, Page 10

i tions. |/ _any, more taxes than he paid previ- i+ ously. f i b A 4 ! i the vote of the people was necessary to ‘ 1" pass the ordinary bond issue. | | the “people-be-damned” law passed by ': { {inends or relatives of the county com- | ||| missioners. i1 advantage of the “people-besdamned”. {1 {lawis shown by the fact that with the { gbarely over, 42 Minnesota : counties. ORTH DAKOTA’S new industrial program, including .the flour mill and terminal elevator sys- . tem, the Bank of North Dakota, the home building associations and all other enterprises nec- essary to carry out the farmers’ program, will cost only 30 cents j per capita in added taxes during the next two years. After that time the new in- dustries should be self-supporting. When they have become self-supporting they are to pay back to the state the money that has been advanced by | the taxpayers to start them on their work. These are the facts in regard to taxes in North- Dakota. State taxes in North Dakota have been increased on account of two reasons: 5 First, . because the old Hanna administration | _starved the state institutions, denying necessary i repairs to keep public buildings from deteriorating, i and finally left the state treasury with a deficit. Of the total appropriations of the last legislature $4,659,627—more than half—was for the mainte- /| nance of education, charitable and penal institu- The unusually large sum of $1,770,663 was | appropriated for new buildings and repairs. This ¢ was. necessary because the Hanna administration i shamefully neglected the state institutions in an |\ effort to make a record of false economy. Second, because the North Dakota legislature I* provided $1,200,000 to be raised during the next two years to help returned soldiers of North Da- kota to make payments on homes. As already stated, the increased taxes to provide for state indus- tries is an extremely small part of the total taxes, Of $100 raised in taxes in North Dakota next year, only $2.65 will go to pay for ex- penses involved in League bills, including the department of immi- gration bill. Not counting the department of immigration bill, the per capita tax for the next two years for the new industries will be only 30 cents. ' - But owing to the way the taxes are | distributed—a larger share being placed upon the possessors of large . incomes and holders of unused land— the actual farmer will pay little, if ' MINNESOTA TAXES 250 PER CENT HIGHER Contrast the North Dakota situa- tion with that of some other states. In Minnesota the state tax levy, which was 1 mill in 1918, will be rais- ed this year to 3.5 mills, an increase i of 260 per cent. The total of all levies : for state purposes, which was 3.6 mills | in 1918, will be increased to 6.48 mills, an increase of approximately 90. per i _The state tax levy, however, i { amounts to only a small portion of the ’total taxes, either in North Dakota, {. Minnesota or any. other state.. While North Dakota was safeguarding the i taxpayers by framing a provision pro- hxbltmg radical increases in local tax- < ation, the leglslature of Minnesota lwas passing the ¢ people-be-damned” ’ law. Under the old law in Minnesota, Under | }the last Minnesota legislature, county | { commissioners are allowed to author- ize road bonds of $250,000 without any 1 vote of the people whatever. : | “Road building often means graft, fat e | i contracts being handed on to. close How anxious the local - politicians of Minnesota are to take. 3 p 1 session: of the :Minnesota -legislature - ¥ are proposing to take advantage of the law to issue bonds without vote of the people. This will mean an immense increase in local tax- ation. Benton county, one typical county in Minne- sota, will have a tax levy next year of 47.59 mills, as compared with a present levy of 38.07 mills, an increase of more than 25 per cent. But there are 33 Minnesota counties with higher tax levies than Benton, including Beltrami county, with a tax levy of 84.96 mills. These counties will have their taxes increased out of all proportion to the increase that is borne by North Dakota counties. OTHER STATES PAY MORE BUT GET NO ADVANTAGE Other states have met approximately the same experience, with state taxes increased much higher than those of North Dakota, though they are get- ting none of the advantages that North Dakota farmers are getting. In Nebraska the appropnatlons ‘of the 1917 legis- lature were $9,694,189. The appropnatlons of the 1919 legislature were $15,929,429, an increase of $5,995,806. The state tax levy for 1917-1918 was 8.48 mills. In order to meet the increased appro- priations the levy for the next two years will have to be 4% mills more, or approximately 13 mills. In other words, the appropriations for the bien- nium are more than 50 per cent higher than for the preceding biennium, and taxes will have to be in- creased accordingly. In Idaho a similar condition is faced The legis- - lature of 1217 appropriated -approximately $4,000,- | _HIS VIEW OF IT | WHAT ! €GGs SOYEACH? 7l FETCH ME A -HALF DOZEN JOVER. - MY, BUT THESE i FARMEBS ARE GETTING il o oS R\CH‘ i ,—Dru'm expressly for the‘Leader by Congressman John M. Baer. It has bemme the habit of city dwellers to blame the a The old cry of “the farmers are getting rich” has profiteers as a. fine smoke screen, As long as the y. were: able to direct the _attention of the public to the farmer while they we able to continue déing so. aising for high prices. n nursed along by the prices, they were The city workers, however, have had their eyes. --opened a bit, aud some of them are:seeing that most of the high - : ‘other ts tlmn ‘the farmers ; : 000. . The 1919 legislature appropriated approsi- mately $8,000,000, which will make the tax increase virtually 100 per cent. In South Dakota legislative appropriations were $3,476,472 in 1915, $5,695,342 in 1917 and $6,308,- 461 'in 1919, in addition to which the legislature authorized $7,000,000 worth of bonds to be issued as a charge against the state, $1,000,000 of which are to be contingent upon the approval of an in- ’ vestigating committee. In Washington the road funds for legislative dis- tribution were more than doubled, which meant a double-sized pork barrel for legislators to distrib- ute. The legislature also appropnated a third of a million' dollars for additional armories,. another item which made the contractors smile. ‘But while willing to provide armories as graft for contractors, the Washington legislators were unwilling to.do anything whatever for the returned soldiers of that - state, killing a bill which provided $10 bonuses for each month spent by Washington citizens in the service, - - In Montana, Colorado and other states leglslatlve appropriations broke all previous records. In some of these state there was good excuse for increased appropriations. The war made additional expendi- tures necessary along many lines, especially in the maintenance of public institutions. But in no state have the people gotten so much benefit from increased taxes as in North Dakota, though in nearly all the other states the taxes were increasd to a larger extent than they were ‘ in. North Dakota. Willmen; N. D. Editor Nonpartisan Leader:. I am sending you a clipping from a newspaper that I would like to: have you print in the Leader if you .can find space for it. v Well, our boys did very well at Bismarck last winter. -Hurrah for North Dakota and every other: state work! J. A. HELQUIST: The clipping which Mr. Helquist sends deals with the new. method “which a court decision has allowed by which the rich can escape income taxes on stock dividends. It reads in part as follows: %A decision of the utmost xmpor- tance to the people was made a short while. ago. i “The defendant in the case was the United States. The plaintiff, a wom- ing in California. 3 “The attorney for the plaintiff was Charles E. Hughes. ; “The judge was Julius Mayer paid by the plaintiff as income tax. “The plaintiff owns Standard: Oil stock, and the amount sought to be’ recovered was assessed upon earmngS‘ of the stock. “There was no denial that the stock: - had "earned the income assessed by the internal revenue collector, but— . - “The corporation had not paid the earnings in CASH. It had paid the stock’s earnings in more STOCK; therefore— T “Mr. Hughes contended that the: _earnings of the stock were mnot in- come, because not distributed: in ithe “Judge Mayer decided that Mr. ernment must return the $19,000 paid. by the plaintifl’ as tax upon that part tificates, which are not: actual: cash; AND :CAN BE CONVERTED IN - .CASH IN ANY MARKET: IN THE Help for Poor RlChi ' that. falls in line for this splendid ° an, was an income tax payer res!d- “The action was to recover $19,000 . form of cash; and— Lot Hughes was right and that the gov-- of the income derived from Standard 0il stock and paid to her in stock;cer- - BUT ARE JUST AS GOOD AS CAS%}: | New Taxes and the Farmers’ Program'” State Industries to Cost North Dakota Thirty Cents Per Capita—How Levies in League State Compare With Other Commonwealths 2 el 3