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Show "A MERCHANT" ANSWERS I have always thought that it was more or less an unscrupulous principle, to denounce your neighbor neigh-bor publicly as being dishonest, but since this seems to be the order of the day, it occurs that perhaps it is a pass time wheh might be indulged in, by more than one. The question of honesty, which was elaborated upon so profusely last week, might well be applied in fields other than that of the small , town store keeper who has always , been as much opposed to the sales tax as the assessor; however since the merchants, in most cases are not legislators - they have no voice in the matter, other than seeing that the law is followed, once that it has been put on the statutes. If honesty has always been the policy in our county, perhaps the county would "not be "holding the sack" as it were, for taxes due on thousands of dollars worth of personal per-sonal property and livestock which has escaped taxation by being attached at-tached fo real estate, worth no (Continued on page 4) 1 OTHERS' VIEWS (Continued from page 1) ' more than the apprased value of the firstyear's personal property, but which continued to carry ad-! ad-! ditional personal , in some instances, instan-ces, until the property reverted back to the County at the time an 1 Auditor's tax deed was issued, thus losing the tax for five years and the County had in turn become the possessor of another piece of land, or the commissioners would be compelled to accept whatever they could get for the acreage. This condition can be brought about only by the indfference or protec-j tion of the assessor. This person' had without a doubt, enjoyed the PRIVILEGE of sending his child--ren to school -and the use of the county roads at the expense of the honest taxpayer. The practice of allowng deputies to appropriate funds collected from taxes, for their personal use and making final settlemeent to the Assessor with a worthless check, has also been tolerated at the expense of the taxpaying public. pub-lic. Another good reason why ,we have insufficient funds with which to run our schools the desired de-sired length of time. It is even possible, that the deputy who issued issu-ed the worthless check for final settlement was reemployed with a deficit remaining from the year previous. This is not fair to the citizens who are endeavoring to meet their public obligations. Haven't we a few honest men who would welcome ithis work? We are reminded of the opportunity opportu-nity of graft in the set-up of the new sales law. Certainly no field presents a greater chance for fa-voritsm fa-voritsm and prhaps complete tax evasion, than does that Of the assessor's ass-essor's office. The possibllties depend de-pend entirely upon the honesty of the individual in each case. The merchant's books are open for inspection in-spection to the proper authorities and will not disappear over night when the time comes for audit. So let's not single out the merchant mer-chant and have him be the only honeest man, let's have honesty in all pursuits, which will be a good reason for less official corruption. G. C. KOHL, A Merchant |