186
THE A B C OF TAXATION
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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.”
