OCR Text |
Show ! SB THIS ; BEING CLOSE W. T. Pyper of Utah-Idaho Company Is Principal ; Witness. Erasure on Blotters of Tax Rolls Offered in the Testimony. Kariy completion of the trial of the salt brought by the Utah -Idaho Sugar 1 L'ompupy for injunction against collec tion by the county treasurer of taxes for iho year 1 Ij 18 upon the company's so-called so-called "Intangible assets," assessed at 510,000,000 by A. H. I'ar.ons, former ; county assessor, appeared probable at the conclusion of tho session yesterday afternoon. aft-ernoon. The case Is in progress before .fudge J. I,oui3 Brown of the Third district dis-trict court. j K.-cept for additional testimony to be ! j given by W. T. Pyper, assistant secretary ! :ind treasurer of the company, after he has obtained certain information from . the company's books, tho plaintiff com pany completed its case yesterday and rested half an hour before the usuaPclos- i ing time of court. The case of the de fense will be presented today. C. C. Ktchards, special counsel for the county, tixpressed the opinion that it probably could be completed in one dav. Karly conclusion of the case is desired by United States Senator W. II. King of counsel for the plaintiff, to permit of h'.a return to Washington. Pyper Principal Witness. Mr. pyper was repeatedly recalled yesterday yes-terday for further examination by counsel coun-sel for both sides as to the property holdings of the company and its method of doing business. The questions of plaintiffs counsel looked to establishment establish-ment that tho company lias no "Intangible "Intan-gible assets,'' that its property is repre- '. feentcd in holdings of taxable nature en tirely. The interrogations of counsel for , the defense wore directed to an exactly contrary purpose, in endeavor to establish estab-lish that certain Intangible property does exist, which is not reached by the usual methods of taxation appraisement or assessment. as-sessment. Richard W. Young, Jr., of counsel for the plaintiff, was called as a witness, and testified that efforts upon his part to Kfct from either Mr. Parsons or the county coun-ty commissioners, at the time of the making of the assessment, satisfactory explanation as to the property against which the assessment was directed, were entirely fruitless. He said that, as a re-i re-i suit, the protest which he filed as coun sel for the plaintiff company, with the board of county commissioners, was nec-! nec-! essnrily based entirely upon his assump- j Hons as to what the added assessment of S10.000.000 was Intended to cover. j . Commissioner Lindsay Testifies. ! County Commissioner Joseph S. Lind say was called as a witness for the plaintiff plain-tiff and testified that a protest was filed by the plaintiff 'company at the time of the making of the assessment and was ! considered by the board of county corn- ! minsinncrs. He said that the demand of the company's representative to know j what property the assessment of $10, 000, r 000 was designed to cover was met with ' j only one explanation, furnished by As- i sensor Parsons. This, he said, was to the effect that figures gained from other counties in Utah and from other states in which the company holds property I showed the total assessment of the com- i panv's property in all such localities to i be approximately $9,000,000, while its own I financial statement showed Its property ! holdings to be $26,000,000. i Assessment Explained. The $10,000,000. it was contended, ac-; ac-; cording to the witness, was designed to i oover this discrepancy, the position be- i ,ing taken that it was allowable to lm- I pose It in Salt Lake county under the j classification of "intangible assets," ! since Salt Lake is the home office of the ' company. The witness said that he voted against the assessment. Joseph A. Young, a deputy in the j county assessor's office, testified that : jin arasure had been made on one of the : b'otters of the tax rolls, immediately ! next to the assessment of $167,180 ' against the property of the company at the West Jordan plant, in addition to the regular assessment made on the property. prop-erty. Kxnmination of the blotter showed that erasure had evidently been made. Mr. Young testified that he had seen the words, Tntg. assets." written at the place which showed evidence of era.sure and that the amount set opposite, as well as the item of $10,000,000 in another an-other place on the rolls, were understood to be assessments of "intangible assets." |