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Show URGES EARLY PAYMENT OF PROPERTY TAXES County Auditor Tells Advantages Ad-vantages of Prompt Settlement, Set-tlement, in Education and Law Enforcement (By JOHN T. WOODBURY) Taxes this year will be delinquent de-linquent on November 30 at noon, and all taxes not. paid be-j be-j fore that time will be subject to a penalty of 3 per cent. The treasurer, however, will be willing will-ing to receive a payment on the taxes, even though it be not the whole amount of the tax due on that property, and all payments pay-ments made before delinquency will reduce the penalty on the amount paid. If a party has a number of pieces of property, and the tax on some of these j pieces is only a small amount, it will be better to pay the smaller small-er amounts, and leave the larger Jones, if all cannot be paid, because be-cause the advertising and costs of sale and redemptoin will be the same on a small amount of tax as on a larger one; the only difference in the penalty, which is 3 per cent in all cases. In the case of a small amount of tax it is easily possible that the cost of advertising and sale plus the cost of redemption after sale, will be much more than the tax, and may be several times the tax. For that reason, it is economy econ-omy to pay the smaller amounts even though the larger must be allowed to go over. I But it is not good business policy to allow any taxes to become delinquent, for this reason. rea-son. The penalty of 3 per cent 'added when the tax becomes delinquent, de-linquent, is followed by an interest in-terest charge of 1 per cent per 'month, or 12 per cent for the 'year. This makes a total of In per cent added for the first year, besides the cost of advertising adver-tising and the cost of sale and i redemption, which would be $1.25 for each parcel sold. It is much less expensive to borrow the money, where possible, and ' (Continued on page 2) TAXES J (Continued from page 1) pay the tax, even though you should have to pay 10 per cent j interest because there would be a saving of 5 per cent on the money, as well as the saving of the $1.25 for each parcel, which 'would be charged for advertising, .sale and redemption. So much for the saving to the taxpayer by paying his taxes on time. But there is another side to this matter. We all know that (taxes are a burden on industry, and must be paid from the earnings earn-ings of the taxpayer, so the amount he has to spend is lessened less-ened by the amount of his taxes. !But taxes are the only source I from which government can de-'rive de-'rive its support. It goes without I saying that governments are 'necessary, and taxes should be 1 cheerfully paid for their sup-1 sup-1 port. In recent years much greater great-er demands are made upon gov-1 gov-1 ernments for money for a variety va-riety of purposes, than ever before, be-fore, and therefore the tax burden bur-den has been increased. In Washington county a little more than 50 r.er cent of all the taxes levied for 1931 are levied for school purposes; and upwards up-wards of 11.4 per cent of the taxes levied are for road purposes. pur-poses. These figures are based on the total taxes borne on the assessment rolls, including state, county, city, school, bounty ann tubercular indemnity taxes. Of course much more money is spent for roads in the county than the figure above named would indicate, indi-cate, but the greater part of the money spent on state roads is derived de-rived from the federal government govern-ment and from the gasoline tax, collected by the state. Recently the demands have greatly increased in-creased for money to aid in the support of indigents, dependent mothers and persons drawing old-age old-age pensions. A small levy is made for the support of the public library, a levy of 1.2 mills is made for paying interest on bonds and for sinking fund for the bonds, and a levy of one-tenth one-tenth pf a mill for advertising. The levy for the county general fund is 2.7 mills, which is intended in-tended to cover the general expenses ex-penses of the county, including the expense of law enforcement, which goes generally under the name of criminal expense; it also covers the cost of salaries of county officers, quarantine and health expense, maintenance of the court house and grounds, district court expense, fuel and light for court house and jail, and a variety of other items. It is evident that if the taxes are not paid, these various activities ac-tivities can not be carried on. There is even now uncertainty as to whether the schools can be maintained for the full time ' in the county this year. Crimi nal expenses go on all the time, and must be paid, as the one thing that governments must do is to enforce the criminal laws. Life and property must be protected, pro-tected, and this cannot be done without expense. Every person who fails to pay his tax is weakening by that failure, the ability to maintain the schools, the ability to enforce law and order, the ability to provide for the indigents, dependent mothers and the old and helpless. I think that the attitude of the taxpayer has a great deal to do with his ability to meet his taxes. There are communities in the county in which all the people pay their taxes every year, and it hardly ever happens that any of the taxes there become be-come delinquent. After they have paid their taxes one year, they begin to plan for the next; and when tax time comes they are prepared to take care of it. In some communities a rather large percentage of the taxes are allowed al-lowed to become delinquent, and the burden of taxes there is greatly increased by the penalty and interest charges. Once let taxes get behind, and it becomes be-comes very difficult to pay them up, for they come every year, and the interest on delinquent taxes is much greater than any farmer can hope to make on his farm. |