"A. John Birkholz" <brotherjohn@imt.net> wrote in message news:<b7iabc$1kn$1@askin-17.linkpendium.com>... > > I'm working some personal property tax lists. I can't find the > > boiler-plate that tells me the tax rates. I've got the one for the > > 1860s, but not the ones for the 1700s. :( > > > > I'm noticing something I think is VERY strange: from information on > > the tax lists, I can deduce the tax rate for a white tithable, for > > one horse, and for one "cattle". However, where the tithable owns > > many horses and/or cattle, the rates multipled by the number of > > animals don't work out to the amount of the tax. > > > > Opinions -- would these be math errors on the part of the assessor, > > ceilings on the number of horses/cattle taxed, variable rates for > > quality of animal, or what? > > > > Cheryl <singhals@erols.com> > > > I am familiar with three modern day scenarios that might give you a > clue to the strange tax behavior you reported. > > 1.) Inventories are often reduced or moved before "tax" day. > > 2.) If the taxpayer was responsible for the count, it was often > under reported. It was never over reported. > > 3.) If the tax man came out to the farm to see for himself, he > would often round down. > > But I doubt that any of this kind of thing happened during former > times <g> Nah > > A. John Birkholz brotherjohn@imt.net > Brother Shoots Brother > > .... He also had a habit of getting drunk on all possible occasions > and his tragic ending has been freely predicted for a number of > years. .... Friday September 1, 1899, West Point Republican -- West > Point, Cuming Co., Nebr. my vote would be for ceilings or exemptions or something like that or whatever else they might have called them back then, if you're going on the assumption that the numbers reported were accurate and the ceilings or exemptions were applied on the total reported (after the fact). of course, if they threw in something else into the factoring soup, like the size of the farm or whatever, this could get tricky unless that is also reported in the same records. or, goodness forbid, there would be some kind of archaic "grandfathering" tax scheme which would lower or otherwise skew tax calculations for land, property, etc. held in the same family or under some "special purposes" exemption....and, given that they had politicians back then, even if they didn't have computers, i'll bet there were some "special" exemptions floating around. sound interesting...i'd like to hear more about this....if you'd care to email me privately, i'd like to hear about your thoughts and progress on this cjb elliotr@alltel.net