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Show Hollenbeck Answers Senator Dillman By L. A. Hollenbeck Senator Dillman asks: "Why not equalize the tax burden?" Nobody objects ob-jects to that. But what he claims as mere equalization will not be equalization. equaliza-tion. It will raise all of our taxes. Mr. Dillman wants a state tax commission with four members two democrats and two republicans, with no party control, that can act independent of all parties and responsible to none, and with power to "administer and supervise super-vise the tax laws of the state." Independent Inde-pendent of the legislature and of the courts too, subject to nobody, and clothed with supreme authority by the people in the constitution to make valuations all over the state and to make the rates too. Which is a violation viola-tion of the natural law that valuations rise or fall inversely as rates increase or decrease, and that valuations should not be fixed by a state board. This authority puts state corporations as to taxation entirely at the mercy of a tax commission, with autocratic powers, and only foreign corporations . in the federal courts would have authority au-thority to take this tax commission into the courts. Do you want that? Besides the tax; commission is to have power to "establish systems of public accounting, review proposed bond Issues, Is-sues, revise the tax levies and budget of local government units, and equalize equal-ize the assessment and valuation of property within the counties." That means that the tax commission . can throttle every little town in the state, and it will have power to prevent water wat-er bonds to be issued, when as a matter mat-ter of fact self government is involved and such local taxes are in the nature of a donation for their own local purposes. pur-poses. Besides the tax commission is brittle, inelastic and inflexible, whereas, where-as, our present system is flexible and elastic ,and so far as it goes, is just what we want. Mr! Dillman is asking for autocratic powers at the state cap-ltol. cap-ltol. I am asking for local self government. govern-ment. Which do you want? Constitutional amendment No. 2 pro- poses to classify property as tangible and intangible. Possibly the classification classifica-tion may be all right, but, the amendment amend-ment also legalizes the withdrawal of state foreclosed lands from taxation, and there are fifteen hundred acres of such foreclosed lands by the state that have been illegally withdrawn from taxation in Duchesne county. That raises all" of our taxes. The legislature leg-islature didn't even think of it. The principal motive of the legislatures is to raise more money. It is a fact that legislatures always grab all they can and this proposed revision is for the fellows that want to spend more money. mon-ey. We know that much intangibles are not taxed. Some intangibles will run away money for Instance leave the state, and break the banks If you tax: deposits. Intangibles will hide under un-der the new system as well as under the present one. If you tax mortgages, the lender will increase the rate of interest and the public will pay it. But, mortgages are the ways that poor folks build homes, and that is putting put-ting an increased burden on the home builder. Is that what you waut? Yes, you can tax francihses of corporations too, and then the corporations will go before the Public Utilities Commission and ask for an increase of rates on electricity or car fare or whatever it is, and make a showing that the corporation cor-poration must have bigger rates. And. do you suppose' the Public Utilities Commisison would grant the raise? You know it would, and you and I would have to pay lt, either directly or indirectly. Besides it is said that it takes at least twenty men at Salt Lake City to take care of the income tax for the federal government. It would take more, much more expense for the state to regulate and collect everything all over the state, and then the most of the tax would evade the collector and you and I would have to pay the added taxes. All of this would dirve capital out of the state and arrest the state's development. Colorado has a similar system to the one now proposed pro-posed here. The state tax commission is constantly quarreling with the county commissioners and assessors all over the state, sometimes ending in fist fights, because the system is a violation vio-lation of natural law in economics and natural law is striving to have-Its way. Besides Colorado is groaulng under the Increased tax burden, and the new system is principally responsible for it and you may expect the same results in Utah. There Is much more to be said, but, however, this tinkering with the constitution con-stitution is dangerous and now we have a lot of amendments, that not even ev-en the legislature or its committees understood un-derstood and we are asked to swallow it all at once like swallowing a box of pills and each pill a different pill. (Continued on last page) IIOLLENBACK ANSWERS DILIj-MAN DILIj-MAN (Continued from first page) Now, Mr. Dillman tells us that if anybody is opposed to any of these "proposed amendments, analyze his motives, what business is he in; Is there a desire to evade a just responsibility, respon-sibility, and evade equality in the demands de-mands of government and education?" Well, you may start by . analyzing me. I am a heavy tax payer. I pay entirely en-tirely on tangible property. I have no intangibles in Utah, and very little anywhere. any-where. According to Senator Dillman and the tax propagandists, I should 1)0 for those amendments body and soul. But I am not. They mean higher taxes. They mean usurption of local rights. They mean autocratic management manage-ment and an unjust centralization of government and driving capital out of the state, and are a threat at the prosperity pros-perity of Utah. |