Page 2
University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Jan. 20, 1965
Car Tax
College Towns Benefit
College towns in Kansas apparently will get a tax windfall from student automobiles.
Alvin Jones, director of the State Property Valuation department, has ruled that cars are to be assessed for personal property taxation at the point where they are predominantly located.
Whether or not Director Jones has a legal basis for his ruling, it obviously is an unfair one. The way to correct it is through legislative action in the session now starting.
For example, a Salina student at K-State may be expected to pay taxes on his car in Riley county where the university is situated. He is at the school nine months out of 12. Up to now, he has paid the taxes to Saline county.
In other words, the home towns will be shortchanged. They will get less tax revenue, while the college towns, already reaping a harvest, will get more.
In fact, one of the first orders of business for the Legislature should be laws putting into effect the principles of the new constitutional amendment removing household goods from the tax rolls. It was because of this amendment that the car question came up. Automobiles are still subject to taxation.
The purpose of the amendment was to eliminate one foolish and often unenforceable personal property tax and to cut the expenses of assessment.
But the boys at the statehouse apparently missed the idea. They still want assessors to pry and quibble. They are drawing fine lines as to whether a cook stove should be taxed because a renter sometimes makes fudge on it, and so forth.
The Legislature can carry out the popular mandate by realistic laws. It can provide, for example, that automobiles be assessed at the time they are licensed. It can simplify the annual census by taking it by mail. And it can use commonsense in specifying what household goods are used for profit and hence should be taxed and what goods are not. Commonsense, for example, would exempt the householder who rents a single room. The tax on the bedstead and wash stand would not pay the cost of an assessor's visit.
There is no doubt what Kansans wanted when they approved the amendment last November. And certainly the sentiment behind that vote did not include a tax grab by the big college towns.
Salina Journal
Federal Aid to Students
By Laura Godofsky
Collegiate Press Service
WASHINGTON —(CPS)—A federal scholarship program that would aid up to 140,000 students next year heads the 260 million dollar education program President Johnson has presented to the 89th Congress this year.
APPROVAL BY SPRING of the scholarship program and Johnson's other education measures was predicted by Congressional and education leaders.
In the House, Adam Clayton Powell (D-New York) the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, is aiming for subcommittee approval by mid-February, and full committee approval by March 1. If the House Rules Committee, which schedules committee-approved bills for floor debate, does not act on the education measure in 21 days, Powell plans to take advantage of the new House rule that will enable him to by-pass the committee and call the bill directly to the floor.
In the Senate, Wayne Morse (D-Oregon) chairman of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee, said hearings on the bill would start Jan. 26 and would probably last three weeks. He thought the education measure might come to the floor during the first two weeks of March. The possibility that this year's huge Democratic gains in the House might prove temporary could explain the speed of planned action.
ACCORDING TO POWELL,
"what we don't pass in Congress
we probably won't be able to
pass in the next generation."
The scholarship program will be augmented by several other huge aid measures;
—Expansion of the work-study program initiated this year under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. Work-study aid, which is currently restricted to students from low income families, would be extended to greater numbers of students and to students from middle income families.
-Partial federal payment of
interest on guaranteed private loans.
—Expanded aid to medical students.
THE LOAN MEASURE WAS presented as "a more effective, fairer, and far less costly way to provide assistance than the various tax credit devices that have been proposed," Johnson said in his education message to Congress.
A 1.2 billion dollar price tag has been put on tax-credit proposals.
Tax credits were defeated 48- 45 in a bitter Senate battle last February, upon administration promises of support for loans, scholarships, and work-study programs. Senator Vance Hartke of Indiana last year introduced an omnibus student aid bill with such programs.
SENATOR ABRAHAM RIBIcoff (D-Conn.), the main proponent of tax credit measures, will not be giving up without a fight, however. Thirty-four other senators have already joined him in introducing a bill to provide tax credits of up to $325 for anyone who pays the college tuition expenses of a student. Forty senators who supported this measure last year are still in Congress. Four senators who opposed it then, one who didn't vote, and three newly-elected senators are among its sponsors.
Faculty exchanges with other colleges and universities, as suggested last year by Congresswoman Edith Greene (D-Oregon).
Another part of President Johnson's higher education program aids smaller colleges. Proposals in this area include:
-Fellowships to encourage graduate students and instructors in large universities to augment the teaching resources of small colleges.
-Aid to faculty members of small colleges to renew and extend knowledge of their fields.
Development of cooperative programs to make more efficient use of college resources.
PRESIDENT JOHNSON has also recommended support for
the purchase of books and library materials; an urban extension program similar to the land grant colleges agricultural extension program; grants to universities for the training of librarians and the teachers of handicapped children; and increased support for research in a wide variety of scientific, educational, and humanistic fields.
In addition, Congress may be asked to deal with several other measures affecting students:
-A Cold War GI Bill sponsored by Senator Ralph Yarborough (D-Texas) and 30 other Senators. This would extend educational and other benefits to veterans who served after the GI Bill lapsed in 1955.
—Amendments to the Social Security Act to enable full-time students to receive dependent child insurance benefits to age 21 instead of 18. Such amendments died last year when controversy over medicare prevented action over Social Security.
—Moves to modify or end the draft. It will be keyed to a defense department study due in the spring.
THE MANY HIGHER EDUCATION programs up for consideration this year, however, seem to be taking a back seat to the 1.255 billion dollar elementary-secondary school program.
This program includes $1 billion for aid to children of low income families; $100 million for school library resources and instructional materials; $100 million for supplementary educational services; $45 million for educational research and training; and $10 million to strengthen state departments of education.
Provisions which would allow parochial school pupils to share public school facilities seems to have dissolved the traditional church opposition to federal aid to education measures. They also have evoked approval from the powerful National Education Association and a number of Congressmen.
"Speaking Of National Origins—"
The People Say...
Editor:
THE EDITORIAL by Jim Langford, "Taxation, Why?," appearing in the University Daily Kansan Friday, January 15, 1965, was interesting; but showed a complete lack of understanding and knowledge on the part of Mr. Langford Therefore, I would like to answer Mr. Langford's questions and charges.
Mr. Langford said "If my memory serves me correctly, this is not a state tax . . ."
THE PERSONAL PROPERTY tax is a state tax. Chapter 79 of the Kansas General Statutes (1949), as amended by the 1961 Supplement to Kansas General Statutes, provides for Taxation. 1949 KGS 79-101 states "that all property in this state, real and personal, not expressly exempt therefrom, shall be subject to taxation in the manner prescribed by this act." 1961 Supp KGS 79-304 states ". . All tangible personal property . . , but if the owner is a non resident of this state or of the county in which such tangible personal property is located, then such property shall be listed and taxed in the same township, school district, city, or taxing district in which said property is located. All personal property shall be listed and taxed each year in the taxing district in which the property was located on the first day of January . . ."
One might say that most students will be on vacation on January 1st, and therefore, the car will not be located in the county. However, this would be a temporary condition and the location would be considered to be in Kansas.
MR. LANGFORD also states he cannot see any practical reason for this ruling. The reason is simple. The citizens of Kansas repealed the personal property tax on Household Goods at the last election, by a constitutional amendment. Therefore, the counties must collect all the revenue available to them to make up for this loss.
Mr. Langford mentions the possibility that the student's parents will have to pay the tax instead of the student. The majority of these parents are paying the student's expenses, and the students who
support themselves will more than likely pay their own tax.
MR. LANGFORD makes reference to paying the tax twice, inferring, I suspect, that this is double taxation. However, a resident student will pay only in Douglas county. As for non resident students, they should check their state statutes. If that state has a statute similar to Kansas then they will only have to pay once. If not then they may have to pay twice unless they could be considered to fall under 1961 Supp KGS 79-316 concerning exemption of property brought in after January 1 and before July 1st. This would depend on an interpretation by the courts. As for double taxation, it is not. It would be taxation by two different sovereign states, comparable to income taxation by both the United States and the individual States.
Mr. Langford's solution is hardly a solution, and not worth an answer.
MR. LANGFORD asks, "Why must students, especially out of state students, just because they attend a state university, suffer the occasional stupidities that leak down from our state governmental machinery." I ask Mr. Langford, "Is correct interpretation of the state law, stupidity?" "Is it stupidity to correct an error of non-enforcement that has been allowed in the past?" I think not.
Why should out of state and out of county students pay the tax? They use the roads and facilities of Douglas county. They expect police and fire protection. Some of them even enter into the Douglas county governmental units. The students get the benefits, therefore, they should help pay for them. This is the basis of all taxation. Without taxation there would be no benefits to be derived by the student.
IF MR. LANGFORD needs any further information, the School of Law, in Green Hall, has one of the largest law libraries in the country, and personnel to help him obtain the information. I suggest he make use of this tax supported source of information.
Cary D. Hanna
2d Year Law Student
Dailij Hänsan
111 Flint Hall
UNiversity 4-3646, newsroom
UNiversity 4-3198, business office
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press.
Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.