1898-Annual Report - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

27 KRate $10.70) This itein of $10,000 represents the note in question, and it is the first appearance thereof on the assessors' books. In 1881 he paid $223.95, divided as follows : real es- tate, $121.77 ; personal property, $102.18 ; the latter based on live stock, $2,240, "money at interest," $6000. (Rate $12.40.) How this amount (represented by the note) came to be reduced from the amount of the prior assessment to $6,000, cannot be ascertained. Mr. Wetherbee does not remember that the matter was ever a subject of conversation with any of the assessors ; and his memory is that he never knew un- til 1895 that he had been assessed at all in Lexington on said note or on any money at interest, or any personal property whatever other than live stock and chattels on his farm. Mr. Walter Wellington, on the other hand, distinctly remembers hearing Mr. Simonds ask Mr. Wetherbee on one occasion whether he considered the note good, and says that Mr. Wetherbee replied that he thought it was. This item, " money at interest $6,000," appears on the assessors' books without change for the year 1882, and for each subsequent year down to and including 1894, the total personal property valuation varying from about $7,300 to a little over $8,000, according as the assessment of his live stock varied from time to time. During this period, 1882- 1894, he paid on real estate, valued at from about $10,000 to rising $11,000, except in the years 1890, to 1893 inclu- sive, when the amount was from $3,000 to $4000 less, by reason of his having disposed of a portion of his farm. In 1895, too, the item "money at interest, $6,000," still stood on the books, and he received tax bill for $194.76 on real estate and $132.75 on personal property, or a total of 5327.51, the rate for the year being $13.00. The total property tax paid by him the year previous was $272.70. 28 His bill for 1895 calling for a total of more than $300, he made an inquiry of the assessors as to the basis of assess- ment, wondering why the tax was so large. He then discovered, he says, for the first time that he had been taxed on money at interest. The assessors promptly abated $5,600 from his personal property leaving him as- sessed on live stock valued at $1,375, and money at interest $400. The last named amount represented cash which he happened to have on hand May 1st of that year, from the sale of some property. The aggregate of the taxes paid on the note from 1880 to 1894 inclusive is $1,185.40, of which sum $354 has been paid since the final settlement and surrender of the note in the summer of 1890. Treating the note as worth during the first four years of Mr. Wetherbee's residence here, i. e., during the years 1878-1881 inclusive, only $4,000, and as worth $1,700 from the last named year down to and in- cluding 1890, and taxing it on that basis except during,. say, two years when there was the above mentioned in- debtedness ndebtedness to offset against it,—in other words, comput- ing the tax on $4,000 for the years 1878 and 1879 and on $1,700 for the years 1880 to 1890 inclusive, the total would have been $318.67. Deducting from the $1,185.40 actually paid, the amount which he would have paid had he been assessed upon what were real values as near as we can now ascertain them, that is to say, deducting said $318.67, we get $866.73 as the amount of over -payment. A majority of the committee, while deeming it just and proper to refund something to Mr. Wetherbee, also believe it an exceedingly bad precedent to allow a rebate of taxes - based upon shrinkages in personal property values ascer- tained scertained long after the laying of the tax or based upon dis- coveries of any kind made years after the assessment_