The Smoky Hill And Republican Union

Non-Resident Tax Payers.

The manifest justice of requiring, says the Topeka Tribune, non-resident land owners to pay a fair proportion of the tax upon such permanent improvements, made by actual residents, to alone enhance the value of his own land and render it saleable, is attracting the attention of our people, our Assessors, and our County Boards.

In Osage county, measures have been taken to this end, the County Boards yielding to the demands of the people, and the Assessor will assess the lands of non residents (that is those who reside in another State, or who living in another county fail to inform the Assessor of their residence,) as much higher as will equalize the taxes in this particular. Will not our County Board and our Assessor come to an understanding and take similar measures to render equal and exact justice to all? The following communication will explain itself:

RIDGEWAY, Osage Co., Kas., April 3d, 1862.

To the Commissioners of Osage County:

GENTLEMEN--The new tax law of 1862 provides that all improvements on lands, exceeding in value five hundred dollars, shall be valued separately, and be liable to be taxed. There are men in our county whose farms are nearly surrounded by unoccupied lands. Their improvements may be valued at $2,500. These improvements enhance the value of all the lands in the neighborhood. The owners of these farms will have to pay about twenty dollars annually for the privilege of enhancing the value of non-resident lands, the owners of which escape the payment of the personal road tax altogether. This may be uniform, but it is certainly not equal. It is therefore in violation of the spirit and letter of our State Constitution.

The article on finance and taxation makes it the duty of the Legislature to provide for a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation.

I have given bond and subscribed on oath for the faithful performance of my duties as Assessor. I shall therefore assess all unoccupied lands owned by non-residents at such a figure that the owners will have to pay a tax equal to that paid by the resident owners, whose improvements do not exceed in value $500, including the personal road tax paid by the latter. This will be uniform, as there will no exception to the rule; and it will be equal, as both resident and non-resident will pay in the aggregate the same amount of tax. If non-residents cannot afford to pay the same amount of tax that residents pay, they had better sell out to somebody who can.

Residents of adjoining counties, owning lands in this, will of course stand in the same position as residents of this county, provided the Assessor can ascertain the names and residence of the real owners.

But as the Legislature, in the plenitude of their wisdom, have repealed that portion of the old tax law, making it the duty of the Register of Deeds to make out an abstract of conveyances for the use of the Assessor, it will be necessary for the owners of unoccupied lands in this county, to communicate immediately, their address and a minute description of their lands to the undersigned. They will probably save about three dollars on each quarter section by so doing.

Yours, &c., O.H. Browne