The ABC of taxation

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1010741608

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-21094

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Fillebrown, Charles Bowdoin

Title:: The ABC of taxation

Edition:: Fourth edition specially revised

Place of publication:: Garden City, New York

Publisher:: Doubleday, Page & Company

Year of publication:: 1916

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (236 Seiten)

Digitisation:: 2018

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part IV. Appendix

Collection:: Economics Books

186 THE A B C OF TAXATION i service ? What more reasonable than to lay these taxes in proportion to public service rendered, in proportion to benefits bestowed; that is, in proportion to special privileges enjoyed f The land value is a perfect reflection of this constant service. The same is not true of houses or other improvements or personal property. “Thus I am constrained to ask by what canon of taxation do you tax me so far beyond the public service that I enjoy as indicated in the market value of my land ? Surely it is not taxa tion according to ability, but rather according to a spendthrift disposition. My house adds not a dollar to the city’s expense on my account. That expense would be the same if my house should burn down. The same is true of my personal estate. So large a tax cannot be on account of special privilege. It is no special privilege to me to border on a coal yard and a freight yard and a railroad. It is no special privilege to me that while the woods of Newton are full of concrete sidewalks, I have lived twenty-four years in the vain hope of access to either the Newton or Newtonville station over a clean sidewalk. It is no special privilege that until within a very few years the sidewalk to Newtonville has been at seasons impassable because of mud and surface water ankle deep, or that to-day the sidewalk to the Newton station, one-half plank and the other half gravel, is only wide enough to accommodate people Indian file. “The land value is the balance or equilibrium between these public advantages and disadvantages. If assessed according to my proportionate and constitutional share of the public expense,my tax would be determined in this wise: as $20,927,850 (the total land value of Newton) is to $4,750 (the value of my land), so is $895,915 (the total tax of Newton) to $203.35 (my proportionate share of that tax). I am taxed to-day $297.15, or $93.80 in excess of this fair amount. It is the abatement of this excess that I respectfully ask your honourable board to grant.”

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