The Fairmont West Virginian. (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1904-1914, 1904-10-18
WHAT IR PuRPosE s AND
SsYE4AT THE Y5sNYfi-LA ccoM PLlsH-I.
y THE STATUTES -
GENTLY ENAc TEDa Ut = -
SPECIAL SESSION CLEAR
@ LY EXPLAINED
AND THE GREAT BENEFIT THEY
WILL BRING SET FORTH
CLEARLY AND DISTINCT
LY-voTERs, READ
THIS.

From the Petersburg State Journal.J
The twenty-one tax laws passed at
the special session of the Legislature
Of 1O4 have been published and widely
distributed The acts cover 1855 print
ed pages and as they appertain to the
entire system of collection, assessment
and disbursement of revenue, are OF
the utmost Importance and far reach
ing in their effect They mark de-
cided step forward toward fairer
and more just system of assessment
and lower rates of taxation and their
merits need only to be fairly consid-
cred and fully understood to meet with
general approval.
What the Acts Are In Brief.
In brief, they reduce the State tax
rate from thrty-five cents to five cents
on the hundred dollars by 1907; in
crease certain license taxes and create
new ones, thereby raising large
amount OF new revenue for the State
from these sources; reduce the max
imum county levy to sixty cents in
stead of the pres limit of ninety-five
cents; limit the maximum levy for
the regular school building fund" to
twenty cents instead of forty; making
a total reduction of 85 cents in total
CT S1.7o or oNE-HALF; prohibit I'M
authorized expenditures by any Off
Ger of the State, county courts or
boards of education; require the coun-
ties having special Criminal Courts to
pay the salaries of the Judges; pro
vide for a Tax Commissioner, who be-
comes the head of the tax assessment
system of the State; create better
system of assessor and assessments,
much of which in regard to the duties
Of the assessors goes into effect in
1909; provide for a re-assessment of
all the real estate of the State in 1905,
under the direction OF the Tax Com
missioner, by commissioners appoint
cd by him, the valuation being subject
to review and correction by the County
Courts and by the State Board OF
Public Works, as an equalization
board, make the first tax levies in the
new values or appraisement OF real
estate apply in 1906; provide for as
sessments of pipe lines, telegraph lines,
telephone lines, car lines, railroads,
Works. requiring complete and accu-
rate sworn returns of the true and ac-
tual values of the property from these
corporations; increase and perfect the
collateral inheritance tax; change the
method of conveying prisoners to the
penitentiary, saving thousands OF dol
lars annually; fix the fees to be
charged, adding new ones and raising
old ones in the offices of Secretary OF
State and Auditor, which are to go to
the State hereafter as new revenue;
require that the regularly elected as
SCISSORS of the counties beginning in
1909, shall thereafter annually assess
the real estate as we'll as all other
property, the, special re-assessment OF
real estate Of 1905 holding until that
time: provide that corporate and all
other property shall be returned for
taxation at its true or actual value;
require counties to pay $4,000 year
toward the education and support OF
their reform school inmates and those
in the w. Va. Asylum formerly called
the Home for Incurables) and NUM-
Der of. minor matters of more or less
Importance.
The general scope of these bills IS
to perfect the taxation assessment .sys-
tenn and give it head and to cause
all property 10 be valued as the constr
tuition contemplates, at its real value,
in order thatthere may be (Duniforn-
ity and honesty in valuations of similar
property: that CD the rates of local
taxation be greatly reduced; that CD
direct State taxes may be wiped out
as far as possible, and the needed
State revenues raised otherwise.
Our present system of unequal and
low values With high taxes us fatally
defective. The object of the new laws
is to put corporate and all property on
the same equal footing, to assess all
property at its value. equally and uni
formly, and then to reduce State, eoun-
ty and municipal taxes.
1t Will take no more money to run
local and State governments under one
system than another. full tax val
uation therefore means low taxes. The
Keynote of the bills is ''fairer valua-
tons and lower taxation" With lower
taxation Invisible personal property
will more largely appear on the tax du-
n1iCatnC Tho