The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1911-10-26
IOWA WANTS COUNTY ASSESSOR
NJ SAME AS KANSAS.
Tax Commission in That State Makes
: Report Showing Advantages
OF New System.

Tax Commission in That State Makes
Report Showing Advantages
OF New System.
The action of the temporary tax
commission of Iowa in deciding to
recommend to Governor Carroll the
establishment of the county assessor
system makes interesting the last re-
port of the Kansas tax commission
upon the operation of the county as
SCISSOR system in that state. The re-
port was made to the Kansas legis-
lature January 10, 1911. 1t favors
the county assessor system.
In its report on the success of the
county assessor plan the Kansas COM
mission says:
"The inclusion of the Office Of
county assessor as part of the as
sessment system still arouses some
criticism. It should be apparent to
any one who desires the assessment
of property to be relatively equal
among the owners thereof that the
reasons for this criticism are politi-
cal rather than economic. One needs
to look only toward any one of the
lines in which human endeavOr has
achieved the best results to conclude
that centralized administration ia the
chief factor of success. Why should
not the public business be benefited
by organization as well as private
business?
among the one hundred counties
of the state which have railroads the
lowest combined value in one county
of real and personal property which
| is assessed by the local assessors is
$2,486,295; the highest value in one
county is $92,525,O56: the average
| value in the one hundred counties is
$23,215,035.
1T is inconceivable that the ad-
ministratfon of private business of
the magnitude even of the lowest
value would be entrusted to num-
Der of persons without responsible
head.
"If this were done in a private
business each employee would be
without limitation as to time con-
sumed and without supervision as to
any other point involved in admins
tration, and one needs not to be told
that the failure of an enterprise SO
conducted would result. Experience
in this and every other state where
the valuation of property for the pur-
posses of taxation is made under
system such as obtained in this state
until the legislature of 1907 intro
duced the reformed system shows
that negligence in administration,
unnecessary expense, favoritism,
omission OF property from the tax
lists, etc., invariably characterizes
the work of assessment"
Old System Bad.
The commission then calls atten-
ton to the losses which occurred un-
der the old system of having town.
ship assessors with power to inter-
pref the law as they deemed fit. The
commission charges that this old
system, which is the system now in
operation in Iowa, resulted in COM
trying to get the actual money value.
commission says:
there were 1900 assessors employed,
with varying ideas of the require
ments of the law and with no stan
dard of work before them to be gen.
orally observed. The result was
competition in getting low values in
stead of harmonious endeavor by
all to arrive at the actual money
value of property in the assessment
as is required by the law.
In the first biennial report of tho
commission it was shown that in all
the townships of a certain county
the assessed values of property var
led from 2 Y per cent to Is per cent
of the prices for which the same
property was sold during the assess
ment year. Attention was also call
ed to the case Of a person who had
lived forty-three years on one tract
of land and during the whole period
the assessed value of the tract re-
NAMED unchanged"
Taking up the benefits of the
county system the report says: "Un-
der the supervision and direction of
the county assessor all deputy as
SCISSORS in his county are striving to
reach a common plane of value des-
ignated by the statute as actual
money value, and the nearer that
plane is reached the nearer CORES
pondingly is relative equality in dis
tributing the tax burden obtained.
The impossibility of obtaining an
equal distribution of the tax burden
through the efforts of a corps of as
SCISSORS, each of whom is a law unto
himself, is everywhere recognized as
one of the chief modern reforms now
generally sought to be brought about
in the Capitalization of the power of J
assessment. The whole matter of ,
assessment and taxation should be 7
looked upon as a business PROPOSE |
ton and not from political view ]
points,"
WHY HESITATE?