New Ulm review., 1912-10-02
TAXATION IN MINNESOTA.
Enorts Of the Legislature to Amend
the Assessment Laws 90 that They
Could be Strictly Enforced.

I'm the last article we endeavored
TO show that if property was assess
ed at its true and full value IN money
as provided by law, without first amen
ding several inconsistent statutes, the
result would be a great and needless
Tncrease in taxes; an uncalled Tor IN
crease in the salaries of several hun
slred county officials and their clerks.
and in all probability in great in
crease in municipal Indebtedness.
Justice in taxation can only be at
tanned by strict compliance with the
law. This is proven by universal ex-
Derience. There is no other way.
With rare exceptions, when an assess
or violates the law and sets up stan
sIard of his own he either inf1ictS an
Jniurv upon some individual taxpayer
or else he does injustice to every
other taxpayer in the state. AS
general rule every step he takes out
side the straight and narrow path pro-
vided by law leads to greater and
more glaring inequalities, and in many
cases if he gets too far away his
work degenerates, as we have said
before into mere traveSty Onjustlce.
Because of the lack of harmony in
the laws which we have pointed out
faxpayers in Minnesota, to use an apt
expression, are placed squarely "be-
tween the devil and the deep sea-"
If the law was strictly enforced, every
one of them would be mulcted with
NEEDLESS taxes. and because it is
not 50 enforced injustice is annually
inflicted upon a large majority OF
them.
Realizing that a just and equitable
assessment of property in this state
was practically impossible unless and
slntil these contradictory laws were
:amended and harmonized, the tax
commission in 1909 placed before the
Teg1slature all of the facts bearing
upon the matter and asked that the
assessment laws be so amended that
...~-, could be strictly enforced with
out unnecessarily increasing taxes
and without injustice to anybody. Sew
eral conferences were held with
members of the committees on taxes
and tax laws of the house and senate
and the whole matter thoroughly can
vassed and the conclusion finally
reached that it would be better, all
things considered, to amend the law
to conform to long established custom
than it would be to undertake to
enforce an assessment at true and
full value bill was accordingly
drawn providing among other things
that. except as may be otherwise
.,-ovided by law all property subject
TO a general property tax shall be
valued at it's true and full mon
ey. which shall be entered op-
posite each item on the assess
ment rolls, and shall be assess
ed at fifty per cent of such true and
full value Such assessed value shall
in all cases be taken and considered
to be the value of such property for
purposes of taxation. and shall be the
value upon which the tax levy shall
be made
The bill was introduced in the house
by the chairman of the committee on
taxes and tax laws. and after the adop
ton of an amendment changing the
basis of assessment from fifty pei
cent of true value to forty per cent
it passed that body and was trans
mitted to the senate where. after a
brief debate, it was indefinitely post
poned.'
The failure of the bill to pass was
due not so much to hostility to the
principle involved as it was to the in
ability of the members to agree upor
the per cent of true value at which
the assessment should be made. 4
plurality but not a majority of the
members favored the fifty per cen
basis provided in the bill as intro
duced. Some favored thirty per cent
Others forty-fve, and others sixty
and in the house one member offered
an amendment providing that proper
ty containing iron ore should be as
sessed at sixty per cent of it's true
value. city property at fifty per cent
and farm property at forty per cent
Out of this multiplicity Of views II