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Lawmakers Take Up Realty Board's Tax Bill
Legislative Amendments Fix Rate on Real Estate at 2.00—Comptroller Craig
Offers Substitute—Legislature Adjourns Next Saturday
REAL estate men who went to Albany on Tuesday of
this week to attend the joint hearing before the Senate
Committees on Taxation and Retrenchment and New York
City Affairs returned to the city considerably encouraged
in the beHef that the Legislature will pass bills that will open
the way for the permanent relief of real estate from the
great burden of taxation which it has been carrying for so
long and which recently has been very materially increased.
The hearing was by far the most important held this
year, because of the large representation of interests af¬
fected by the proposed legislation and because of the ap¬
parently friendly attitude of the lawmakers, and in the
general recognition by both legislators and tax officials of
the imperative necessity of affording relief to New York
realty. It was necessary to hold the hearing in one of the
largest rooms in the Capitol to accommodate the great
number of people who appeared either to take part in
the hearing or who represented interests that would be
affected by the proposed legislation.
The joint committee meeting was held for the purpose
of giving an opportunity for the development of any op¬
position to the bill proposed by the Real Estate Board of
New York fixing the real estate tax at L75, with its at¬
tendant proposition that personal property should be taxed
at two and one half mills to make up the deficit between
the budget and the taxes obtained from real estate under
this rate, and the six bills proposed by the Tax Depart¬
ment known as the Boylan bills.
Just before the hearing the New York City administra¬
tion sprung a surprise by obtaining the introduction in the
Senate near the close of the day's session of a bill prepared
by Mr. King of the Corporation Counsel's ofiice, under
instructions from Comptroller Craig, proposing the listing
of personal property under conditions similar to the
National Government's regulations for the imposition of
the income tax and fixing the personal property tax rate
at eleven mills per dollar. This bill was also introduced
by Senator Boylan, who asked that it be advanced to final
passage immediately, but this was blocked by Senator
Nicholl's objection. Minority Leader Wagner thereupon
threatened that if the objection was persisted in he would
attempt to prevent legislation of any character for the re¬
mainder of the legislative session.
As the direct result of the hearing Senator Boylan,
on Wednesday in the Senate, offered amendments to the
bill proposed by the Real Estate Board hmiting the tax
on real estate to twenty mills or 2.00 per hundred in¬
stead of 1.75, as proposed in the original measure, and
making the personalty rate eleven mills, or $L10 per
hundred, instead of 2I'2 mills, or twenty-five cents per
hundred as the bill originally read. These amendments
were adopted by the Senate and the bill was recom¬
mitted to the Committee on Affairs of the City of New
York.
This amended bill is a compromise measure between
the original Boylan bill and the ones proposed by the
Tax Department and by Comptroller Craig.
The next step in the legislative program will be the
reporting of the bill out of committee to take its place
on the calendar for final passage. It is expected that
this will be done next Monday night.
Among those who were present when the hearing began
were Robert E. Dowiing, president of the City Investing
Company; Laurence McGuire, president of the Real Estate
Board of New York; E. P. Doyle of the Real Estate
Board; Walter Lindner, representing the Title Guarantee
ond Trust Company; President Jacob A. Cantor and Com¬
missioners Louis A. Swazey and George H. Payne of the
Tax Department, and representatives of the Brooklyn
Board of Brokers, the New York Tax Reform Associa¬
tion, the Association of Manufacturers and Merchants and
ether organizations. Senators James A. Emerson and
George Cromwell jointly presided.
A. C. Pleydell of the Tax Reform Association protested
against the enactment of any of the bills proposed by the
Tax Department aiming at increasing the revenues by the
taxation of personal property on the general ground that
these bills would be ineffective if they became laws, be¬
cause their provisions were too loosely drawn and the pen¬
alties insignificant. Referring to the bill proposing the
taxation of individual holdings of corporate stock he
said that this measure involved double taxation, inas¬
much as the corporation was already taxed on its stock.
The corporation having to pav a tax upon the entire issue
of its stock it was unjust, in his opinion, for an individual
holder of any part of this issue to be called upon to pay
an additional tax.
Mr. Pleydell also contended that if personal property
was taxed in the tax district where such property is lo¬
cated, as proposed by the Tax Department, it would mean,
for one thing, that a railroad train would be taxable in
any district in which it might happen to be at the date of
the tax return. He declared that the proposed listing of
personal property, as outlined by the Tax Department,
v.'onld net small results because the bill followed the lines
of former efforts in this direction which had proved
failures.
J. J. Merrill of the Corporation Tax Bureau said that
if an effective listing system for personal property could
be drawn up there would undoubtedly be disclosed over
$60,000,000,000 of personal property of which only a
baeatelle is now on the tax rolls. If this enormous amount
of property could by any means be got on the rolls, and
after all exemptions had been made, the tax rate would
be so low that nobody could or would object to paying their
allotment and the burden on real estate would be relieved.
The poor people in the tenements were now carrying this
burden in the form of rent payments. The workman who
paid a rent of $16 per month was paying about $130 per
year out of his poor earninsrs for the cost of government.
The Citv of New York. Mr. Merrill declared, is turning
in the right direction but the reform looked for could not
be accomplished through the legislation proposed by the
Tax Department.
"There is no such thing as sacred property," said Mr.
Merrill. "More than 90 per cent, of the personal property
is on the exempt roll. We cannot keep on piling up the
taxes. There are now 17 kinds of taxation. The steam rail¬
ways alone pay taxes in seven different ways. Unless steps
are taken to relieve the tax burdens in New York City
socialism will be enormously increased when the men who
are now fighting our battles 'over there' come back and
demand that things be set right 'over here.*"
President Cantor explained that the bills introduced by
Senator Boylan at the request of the Tax Department had
been prepared after two months' investigation of the sub¬
ject. It had at first been proposed to tax personal prop¬
erty at 1.50 so as to relieve real estate. The bills were