Levy on a Dukedom

New Jersey's reputation among experts in tax avoidance as a "good State" trembled in the balance last week. New Jersey has a property tax but no income tax. Its tax districts do not always collect taxes on intangible property as some States (e.g., Florida, Maryland) do. Last week one Jersey township up and did it, set vibrations going in many a high-powered law office. The township: Hillsborough. The taxpayer: Doris Duke Cromwell. The tax: $13.834,924.

The assessment was the handiwork of Alfred L. Kirby, professional revenue bloodhound for taxing bodies. In Hillsborough's employ, Kirby found that Mrs. Cromwell had never made a return on her intangible property, legally due ever since she was 21. She has paid some $20,000 annually on her Duke farms, her buildings, her personal property. Discoverer Kirby decided that she was also taxable not only for stocks, bonds, etc. held in her name but also as a trustee for the Duke Endowment Fund, a New Jersey trust. Stopped by law from snuffing back more than two years, the taxers totted up the bill at $3.10 per hundred for 1941, $3.12 for 1940.

Into this pretty pie Hillsborough's tax collector thereupon thrust his thumb, but his chances of pulling out a plum were rather iffy. Mrs. Cromwell can protest the assessment. Most likely grounds: that she is a resident of Honolulu, not Hillsborough.

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