The Fairmont West Virginian. (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1904-1914, 1905-11-06
FAIR CASH VALUES.

i b. ~ 3.
There are some people who are still
raying about the beauties OF assess
ments at fair cash values" 1t has
never been exactly determined what
fair cash value1ois. but in West
Virginia each assessor In the past
has acted upon his own definition.
Some got 1t into their heads that IT
meant the price property would bring
at forced sale, AMI assessed prop
erty accordingly, their judgments
working marvellous wonders with the
various species OF property. And
stlll some assert that Is the proper
valuation. the price property would
bring at forced sale, despite the
fact that determining forced sale
value is invariably guess work with
no accurate basis to guess from while
determining the true and actual val.
ne or real worth of property. is COM
paratively easy.
Even If all the counties under the
forced sale idea observed the same
standard, which they didn't ana
couldn't do, the system would con.
| tinue to work injustice. For instance
houses really worth $4,000 to $4,000
II disposed of at forced sale would
bring less than three.fourths and of.
ten their whole value for the sim
pie reason there are always plenty
of buyers for this class of houses
and plenty of spectators and in
vestors lying around to pick them up
at auction. On the other hand take
the man with $4,000 house. This
house IL put under the hammer would
| not bring more than half its value
| and possibly not that percentage. be.
cause the market is limited for that
| class Of property. Then with your
forced sale assessment you would
nave the $4,000 man paying taxes on
three-fourths he owns and the $780,.
900 man paying on only half he
owns, which means the poorer man is
proportionately paying so per cent.
yet there are people who argue that
this is right; in fact there are some
who frankly contend that the more
expensive and the finer house is, and
the more money its owner puts in
increasing its luxury and splendor
the less rate of taxes he should pay
and expect people to be impressed.
There Is another point about that
forced sale idea. How are you going
to assess money under 1t? II man
has $1,000 in the bank, how can you
| figure any fair cash value out of it.,
other than $1,000. How can the
forced sale apply there? Still it would
not be Just to assess other property
| at one-third to three.fourths its value
| and the man with the money at the
full value. Under the old forced sale
law the injustice of this was recog.
nized and the result was the man
with the fat bank account, cold cash
ana nice loans, did not pay any taxes
at all. He showed 1t on mostly to the
real estate owner who was lulled to
sleep by the nonsensical idea that
because he was not assessed at his
full value. he was not paying more
than his share of taxes. The fact
was he WIS not only paying his own
share. but all Of the money-lender,
the bondowner and their kin besides
Forced sale assessments mean in.
Justice for the simple reason that
there are many classes of property
which have no forced sale value be.
cause you cannot ds;:ro oat forced
sale value for thing that is never
sold at forced sale.-Wheeling News
Just think of it, will you? The
farmers are paying much less tax this