OCR Text |
Show School Tax. Under the p'ovisions of t!ie revenue law pna-etl a'. t::e 1 isi iiDn of t he legislature, a direct e-. hool lax is now included in the regular Uxee. The new item seems lo be a source ol mystification to a great many persons, who are unacquainted with the law, aud inquiries as to the occasion of this new departure iu the tax notice are becoming very cumuioo. Under the old l.iw the trustees of a school district were impowered to "assess and col-lec:, col-lec:, annually, a tux of one-fourth ot Oae per cent, on all Usable property within their dis'.iioL-, fir school purposes." pur-poses." Tdi wii in the nature of a locrtl tar, tt id iuu ii or might not be imp.-.M-i. .u the discretion ol the tninit'i s the respective districts. Tnif proviritJii of the old law has been j repealed aud iu its 6 lead i: is now J provided in the revenue law that a Ux of "three mills on the dollar for the benefit of district schools" shall be j levied on all Uxjble property in the 1 territory. Iu this connection it might be well to state that in accordance with section COS of the Complied Laws of Utah, the sum of $25,000 annually "was appropriated appropri-ated for the use of schools in ths ter ritory," of which $-0,000 was to be for the use ot district schools. This portion of section 60S has also ben repealed. The const quence is, there- fore, that instead of there hereafter! being a local tax of one-fourth of one per cent., a general and direct tax ol three mills ou the dollar is assessed witri the regular territorial and county taxes, and included in the tax notice. Tuat this would be a better method than the old one was the impression of the legislature. It will be ascertained ascer-tained by an examination of the school laws, that the taxes collected for school purposes will be applied only for the use of schools and divided pro rata in proportion to the average school attendance in the respective districts. The amount which would yearly be obtained by the new provision pro-vision -premming, of course, that the whole tax is collected would approach some u0,0D0, about f iO.000 more thaa the annual appropriation j nner the old law; but whether the general results will ba better remains ! to be seen. J |