Thursday, Dec. 20, 1917

The state tax commission rules today that Saratoga Springs “has been bearing an unfair percentage of the state and county expenses,” while a lawyer for the Spa City claims that the rest of the county may owe it up to $40,000.

While “no written opinion has yet been handed down by the commission,” The Saratogian reports that the body’s new equalization table provides for a refund to Saratoga Springs for last year’s overtaxation.

“It has always been thought by the officials of the city of Saratoga Springs that the city has been paying an unfair proportion of the taxes, and that many towns in the county were assessed at a ludicrous figure,” says attorney Clarence B. Kilmer, who assisted city attorney Harold H. Corbin in the case.

“The results of this trial show this contention to have been correct. The decision means that the other towns of the county will have to return to the city of Saratoga Springs from $35,000 to $40,000 of the taxes collected last year.”

The county board of supervisors may appeal today’s ruling, but Kilmer claims that the new equalization table “must stand” regardless of any appeals court opinion on points of law.

“The share of the refund to be paid by each town to the city of Saratoga Springs will be determined by bookkeeping and will be collected in the 1917 tax budget,” the reporter notes.