The Fairmont West Virginian. (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1904-1914, 1904-09-28
WHAT THEIR PURPOSE is AND
WHAT THEY WILLAccoMPLisH
AL THE STATUTES RE
GENTLY ENACTED BY THE
SPECIAL SESSION cLEAR-
LY EXPLAINED
AND The GREAT BENEFTT THEY
WILL BRING SET FORTH
CLEARLY AND DISTINCT
EY-voTERs, READ
THIS.

Of 1o4 have been published and widely
distributed. The acts cover 155 print
ed page and as they appertain to the
entire system of collection, assessment
and disbursement OF revenue, are OF
the utmost#importance and far reach
ing in4their effect. They mark a de-
ctded step forward toward q fairer
and more Just system of assessment
and lower rates of taxation and their
merits need only to be fairly consid-
sered and fully understood to meet with
general approval.
~ What the Acts Are In Brief.
In brief, they reduce the State tax
4 rate from thirty-five cents to five cents
! on the hundred dollars by 1907; in
crease certain license taxes and create
new ones, thereby raising a large
amount of new revenu for the State
from these sources; reduce the max
imum county levy to sixty cents in
stead of h present limit of ninety-fve
cents; limit maximum levy for
the regular school s'building fund" to
twenty cents instead of forty; making
a total reduction of IS cents in a total
fof S1.7o or ONE-HALF; prohibit IN
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 a better
systemof assessor and assessments,
muchEof which in regard to the duties
Of the assessors goes into effect in
1909; provide for a re7asSessment of
all the rea estate of the State in 1905,
under the direction of the Tax CoIn-
missioner, by commissioners appoint
ed 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; MAX 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.
etc, annually by the Board of Public
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 well as all other
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 a 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 a 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 a head and to cause
all property to be valued as the const1-
tuition contemplates, at it's real value,
in order that there may be CD uniform
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 is fatally
defective. The object of the e laws
is to put corporate n all property on
the same equal footing, to assess all
property at its value, equally and uni
form1y, and then to reduce State, coun-
ty and municipal taxes.
1t will take no more money to run
local and State governments under one
system than another. A full tax val
uation therefore means low taxes. The
keynote Of the bills IS "falrer valua-
tons and lower taxation" With lower
taxation invisible personal property
viii more largely appear on the tax du-
plicates. The State are to
be raised from license and privilege
taxes, inheritance taxes. etc.
aeEErA Study nf tho 1i11c in .fnfat1 Will