Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1912-08-29
TAXATION IN
MINNESOTA

Basis Of Valuation for Taxation Pur.
poses-No. 2-Thirty-first Article
i Coupled with the statute requiring
that property shall be assessed "at its
true and full value in money is an
other, equally explicit providing that
all property not exempt from taxation
shall be listed and assessed. Willis
4 this provision of law is not violated
i by assessors in the same open and
1 systematic way as the one requiring
full valuation" it is, nevertheless will
fully violated in great many assess
ment districts every year. In many
districts it has long, been the custom
to assess five horses as four; three
COWS as two, and so on down through
all the classes on the list, the purpose
in most cases being to keep down the
assessment of the district by keeping
| up the average assessment of each ar
ticle in a given class, while in a few
cases it may be resorted to for the
purpose of favoring the assessors
| friends
II all property was assessed at a
uniform given per cent OF true and
full value" the result would be
square deal for everybody. If the
law permitted, there would be no in
herent vice in "undervaluation'' so
long as everybody was treated alike
But when property that should be
taxed is omitted from the rolls; and
when every article in given class is
assessed at a fixed sum regardless of
value a square deal is impossible.
Such methods invariably result in the
grossest injustice not only to districts
taken as whole, but to individual
taxpayers as we'll, and are unuuestion-
ably the most vicious and indefensi-
BILE of all the illegal practices that
have fastened themselves upon our
taxing system during fifty years of
lawbreaking. They work almost in
variably in favor of taxpayers owning
high grade and costly property, and
against the owners of inferior and in,
expensive property. In short, they
favor the rich as against the poor,
and, worst of all, they leave the small
taxpayer without any adequate means
of redress. 1t is just about as expen-
sive, and takes just as much time, to
obtain relief from an over assessment
against the small holdings of a poo:
man as it does to correct an assess
and the result is that the small tax
peyer submits to the wrong because
he cannot afford to do anything else,
while the large taxpayer, because of
the large amount involved, can afford
to and does usually fight for his rights
and get his unfair assessment cor
rected.
Equality and justice in taxation un-
der our laws depend almost entirely
upon the assessor. He is by far the
most important officer who has ANY,
thing to dc with taxation If he makes
his assessment in the way that the
law provides, or even if he makes it.
at a uniform definite per cent of true
and full value" approximate justice
3 will prevail between the individual
taxpayers of his district: but if on the
other hand he makes it in accordance
with the agreements usually adopted
at assessors meetings, or If he omits
any considerable amount of taxable
inevitably abounds in the grossest in
equalities- sand they are inequalities
that cannot be corrected by equaliza-
ton. If they could, the situation
would not be so bad, but as a, rule
every attempt to eQualize simply tends
to make q bad matter worse. Moth
win correct such assessments. The
I inequalities existing between assess
ment districts and counties can be
smoothed out and equalized fairly we'll
by boards of equalization, but not so
the inequalities between individuals
that result from following the illegal
methods above described. Never until
we are able to get away from these
conditions and have everything as:
sessed in strict accordance with the
law will we have anything even ap.
proximating equality and justice be
! tween individual taxpayers.
The next article will set forth some
! of the obstacles in the way of assess
4 ing property 'zat its true and full
|. Value