A Comparison of The Personal Property Tax Burden of Five Separate Groups of Business In Norton County

The subject of this thesis, A Comparison of the Personal Property tax burden of Five Separate Groups of Business in Norton County , was selected after much consideration and investigation. The purpose of the investigation is to find to what extent the personal property tax burden is borne by business and what group bears the heaviest burden. The first four chapters of this thesis cover materiel and data considered essential in discussing the problem of personal property tax burden of business in the state as it might be expected to affect Norton County. These chapters lay the background concerning the wealth of the several counties selected, the general trends in taxation in the state, and the data covering the general business of the five selected groups of business. Five principal groups of business have been selected as the basis of this thesis because of the completeness of the obtainable information. Seventy counties picked at random beginning at the north edge of Kansas and omitting every other tier of counties were selected as being a cross section of the entire business activity in the State. Certain other counties were included representing vital trade centers having larger cities and unusual importance in business. Adjoining counties were included in several instances because a large portion of the city\u27s population lived in the neighboring county or counties. These seventy counties represented two-thirds of the total counties of the state. The population of these counties represented 55 .4 per cent of the total population in the state. The sales in the seventy counties were equal to 81.31 per cent of the total sales for the entire state. The five groups of business operated 73.0 per cent of the stores in the state. The percentages indicate a cross section of the business activity in the selected counties during the year 1935