TAXING MR ROCKEFELLER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11026, 14 March 1914, Page 5

TAXING MR ROCKEFELLER.

BIG CLAIM BY COUNTRY. SAN FRANCISCO, February 15. Mr Rockefeller, the richest man in the world, was detained during a considerable portion of' last year in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, owing to the illness of his wife. It is possible that this circumstanco will cost him not onb the amount of the doctors' and nurses' bills, but a trifle of 12,000,000d01, or I £2,400,000, besides. The County of Cuyahoga has formally made demand upon tho "oil king" for that 6um, representing a tax on the 900,000,000d0l .(£180,000,000) of personal property Mr Rockefeller is saidf to own. Under the law of Ohio, a person remaining in the State for the greater part of the year ending the first Monday in April, is regarded as a resident, and is subject |to the tax oil personal property. The tax collector kept careful trace of Mr . Rockefller's movements, and, having 'concluded that his stay in Ohio was 'sufficiently long to bring him within the law, forwarded to him a demand for 12,000,000d0l in taxes. Mr Rockefeller's lawyers laugh at the efforts of 1 the Ohio officials to tax him. They claim that he is a legal resident of the ' State of New York, and as such' has i already paid his taxes for the current ' year. They admit that he was detained in Cleveland by the illness of his wife, but deny that that fact renders him liable to pay the personal property tax there. Mr Rockefeller differs from most other multi-millionaires, in that the larger proportion of his wealth conoists of personal property, principally securities of Standard Oil, and the banks and other corporations with ! which it is bound up. Tho 12,000,000 dol demanded, if collected, would be divided between the State, county and Bast Ohio. The latter city would become the paradise of tho small taxpayetj whose payments to the Treasury would dwindle down to a matter of cents rather than dollars.