Salt Lake City, U.T.
Jan. 8/71
Hon. W. H. Hooper., M.C.
Dear Sir:-
Enclosed you will find Check of Hooper, Eldredge & Co. on Riggs & Co. for Twentytwo Hundred (2200) dollars, which is sent to you for such necessary use as will be dictated by your best judgement, by direction of bro. Wells. Bro. L.E. Harrington left here this AM. for Washington to render you such assistance as may be in his power. Your letter to bro Wells was received yesterday. I merely gave you those arguments in my letter to aid your lawyer to lay hold of the case against the Church for an internal revenue income tax upon means donated to the Church. And altho' I have written to you twice before on that subject I cannot satisfy my mind without saying a few words more on that subject.
It seems to me that if the statement of the mode of computing the said tax, <made out> by Assessor Taggart, for 1868., of which I mailed you a copy--enclosed in my last, be sent for by the Commissioner on hearing the case, as he might be induced to do, on a demand or request made by the Attorney who argues the case, that the whole case is committed against the Government by the simple admission made by Taggarts, deducting 50 per cent of the tithing (for charitable purposes) from taxation, -- and justifies me in not returning, (as Chief Clerk who made out the return of income for 1868) any of the tithing as income, as I was aware of the disposal of the tithing better than the Assessor and I simply did just as Taggart did -- deduct what was for charitable purposes, viz the whole fund, while he deducted only half, leaving a tax assessable on the other <(enormously exaggerated)> half. Now if the fund is taxable at all, it seems to me, to be taxable in its entirety, & that Taggart had no right to deduct 50 per cent, if his case was just:--there is no law allowing him to do so -- I believe -- but do not know. The tithing or tenth of the profits which the Saints ofttimes give to the Church, is either taxable, or not taxable I should think, & the Assessor did have doubts about it being taxable, as is evident from his allowing half of the tithing as he computed it, to go free of tax. And if he is justified in making that deduction, for what he considered was the amount of tithes devoted to charitable purposes, was not the Trustee in Trust justified in deducting all of the tithing he received, & making no income return of it, seeing he knew that it was all collected & used for those purposes.
I also enclose a copy & can <send> you the original document if you wish it, of the last ruling of the T. in T. in relation to the Tithing being a voluntary thing on the part of the people, & it is law to us as much as anything that may appear on the other side of the question.
There is one thing more. Mr Hollister required and obtained, also, from us, a statement of all the tithes paid in <each &> every branch or ward of the church throughout the Territory,which I sent you a copy of, and in relation to which I wish to say that there are about 75 wards; to each ward a clerk to be paid, and often one man or more to receive and take care of the tithing products; and to each ward a bishop, and where the principal wards are subdivided, sometimes more than one, who have to be helped a little to 'make ends meet' when they devote so much of their time to ministerial purposes, or in any wise they come necessarily short; there is also one or two meeting houses in each ward to build and keep up; hence it is quite another matter what they send to the Trustee in Trust, or what is received by him from the entire total received by the Bishops, or ministers throughout the Territory; hence what the Trustee in Trust receives was shown clearly in the Statement I sent you signed by myself, which agrees with Statement signed by W. Clayton Notary public, forwarded by Bp Harrington. Moreover I believe it would be right and allowable to claim the usual One Thousand dollars deduction for each branch of the Church or minister who collects these tithes. I reckon that the whole of the donations to the Methodist Churches and their entire income throughout the whole state of New York are not added together, and only one single deduction of that amount allowed by law to go untaxed, made from the gross amount! The way the T. in T, is assessed, (allowing that he should be assessed) is all wrong in principle. Suppose a bishop at St George receives 20 gals, molasses on tithing -- the record will show Forty dollars donated to the Church in tithing by the donor -- but when hauled up here for the workmen on the Temple &c., -- the hauling would cost $13.20 & the molasses if sold for cash would bring about 75 to 90¢ per gallon on that quality, & would bring about $15. or a couple of dollars more than the hauling -hence to tax the Church here at Salt Lake for molasses, vegetables &c donated to the Church in St George and other distant parts -- makes a gross and odious imposition wrong in every view: such tax against the T. in T. can only, by any construction, be assessed upon what the Trustee in Trust receives as set forth in that statement, even if our contributions are decided taxable, altho we admit that the bishops make a record of what tithing they receive and send us a copy and we file and record it; & it was from those Accounts that Statement was made to cover the entire ground claimed by Hollister. With this I conclude the arguments which I give to post the Attorney if they suit you.
As ever
T.E. Ellerbeck