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1872 January 8 Letter to James Coey

Title

1872 January 8 Letter to James Coey

Description

Brigham states no concise church real estate record exists but offers to compile one if required, questioning its relevance to income tax and suggesting a report on rents and profits instead.

Type

Correspondence

Sender

Brigham Young

Recipient

James Coey

Date

1872 January 8

Location

Salt Lake City, Utah

Number of Pages

2

Subject

Government
Property
Taxes
Financial

Salt Lake City, U. T.
January 8, 1872

James Coey Esq.
Assessor U. S. Internal Revenue,
District of Utah.

Sir:-

Yours of 3rd inst is received, requesting "permission to examine the records" "of Real Estate in the hands of the Trustee in Trust (of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saint,) on the 1st. January 1868,"-- and in reply beg leave to state that if it is necessary, and is relevant to the Income tax, I will endeavor to furnish (if you officially require it) as complete and correct a schedule as possible of the Real Estate claimed by said Trustee for said Church at the time mentioned; but it will take time as we have only a few partial Memoranda of such property, and have never had any concise Record or Account thereof in my office; there being considerable real estate in the different branches or wards of the Church throughout this and adjoining Territories consisting of Churches or Meeting Houses which are used as public school houses during week days and they are held in charge by the Bishops or Individuals, and there are no records or but very few of such property in my office, and it would be a lengthy task to obtain them properly made out; at the sametime I would respectfully ask, inasmuch as there is no United States tax levied upon real estate what do you propose to deduce from such an account, and what resulting information can possibly be obtained therefrom pertaining to an assessment for income?

If you will kindly me I would respectfully suggest that you should have a full, true and detailed account of all the rents, profits, and income derived from said real estate, and from any other investment of said Trustee for said Church, be the same much or little, for the years in question, and that should be required of me, and if you will allow me the privilege of making out that account or 'Return' and of taking the customary oath thereto, as to the correctness thereof, in compliance with the law, I shall be pleased to do so A press of business has prevented an earlier reply

Respectfully,

Brigham Young
Trustee in Trust for the
Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter day Saints