Show CONTROL OF PUBLIC expenditures II 11 what the tax money is spent for editors note this is the second of a series of timely articles on the tax question by the utah tax commission sion the first was published last week and three others are to follow this oue one the difficulties which beset the tax payer in his attempts to control the amount of tax money to be collected in his community were discussed in our last article and we indicated that through a proper understanding of the proceed ure the taxpayers of any community could assist in Ieter determining mining in advance what the public expenditures expend iturea tor for any local purpose should lie be the tax notice which each taxpayer payer receives does not show the action of any one tax spending body but is the combined result of the levies of each branch of government under which the property of the the tax taxpayer is subject to taxation thus it if the property is located in a city it is subject to taxation tor for state county school district and city purposes we shall examine the situation in cedar city tor for the year 1931 to illustrate how the tax bill Is formulated and to show the proportion of the total tax which is levied for each purpose in order that the various purposes can be grouped under the heads with which we are familiar we shall use the following n state stale general und fund county roads schools and city purposes we find that each dollar chia paid in taxes on cedar city property Is distributed as follows state general fund scents 5 cents district and high schools 42 cents county purposes 10 cents roads scents 8 cents city purposes 35 cents total the above proportions are not uniform throughout the state but vary in accordance with the levies in different localities we shall now briefly analyze each of 0 the above purposes the state general fund levy la Is applied upon the valuation of 0 all property thru out the entire state the up from rom this source Is used tor for the operation of the state govern government men this includes the university of 0 utah atah the utah state slate agricultural college the branch agricultural college at cedar city the state state prison the I 1 I 1 school for the deaf and blind and various other state institutions the levy for district and high schools includes the state stafe izy iz y tor for these purposes as well as aa the local levies in 1930 the levied a tax of 47 mills tor for stata district school purposes and 2 of a mill for or state high school purposes ies the revenue which is secured from these levies is distributed back to the various school district the state district school levy is distributed on a basis of approximately 2500 per capita school population while the state high school levy is paid back to the school districts on oil a basis of p the attendance in the high for the school year 1930 1931 2111 2114 l per capita was distributed tor for the al district strict school fund and 45 per capita for the high school lund fund under this arrangement a county which is above the average in per capita wealth contributes to the aid of 0 the schools in a county which is under the average in per capita wealth last year the total state school tax lax charged in iron county was while the total amount of aid which iron county received from the state slate tax tor for district and high schools was wab bo that the lion bouny school district received more ficia the state school tax than was a charted against iron county property for this tax this total docs not include iron countes Coun tys reee rec als front from the sate land interest and rental find in the amount of 43 3 0 1 tho the levy tor for county purposes la Is made up thoai real the file following folio follo ving xing items general fund poor and indigent dependent mothers rs library and interest and sinking fund the road levy con consists sets ot of 25 1 5 mill levy for county roads and a levy of 1 will mill tor for tile the maintenance and repair ot of the state highway within lion county the municipal levy tor for cedar city shows a total ot of 16 mills this total la Is made up as follows general fund 4 mills guaranty fund 7 mills library 2 mills interest and sinking fund 93 mills the high levy for and sinking fund purposes seb indicates that cedar city must have a large bonded debt in the above we have briefly analyzed the tax levied on property situated in cedar city this analysis shows the general purposes tor for which taxes are now being raised and provides a basis tor for tho the further study of 0 the problem the taxpayer is probably interested in the total amount of his tax bill more than in any one item but the total bill Is made up of many items each levied tor for different purposes it if taxes are to be reduced the reduction must oe OB applied directly tp to the e ind individual vidual steins which make up the lota our next article will explain how the various items which make up the total tax bill are determined upon and will point the way to the taxpayer who is interested in an the I 1 effective control of public expenditures tures PT |