The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-03
LEE LONG TALKS ON FIXING OF TAXES No Cause for Apprehension
 About Action TO MOVE CAREFULLY Says in Most Cases the Commission Will Accept Company's Estimate
 of the Value of Various
 Properties
TO MOVE CAREFULLY

The well known fact that the state tax commission intended to maintain headquarters in Birmingham. the re- turn to the city Thursday of J. Lee Long, chairman of that body, and vis- its of the official body to various and sundry plants in this district, have created a season of uneasiness here among industrial men and others.
 J. Lee Long, head of the tax com mission was told yesterday of feel ing of apprehension here and asked as to the intentions of the tax comms- sion. He evaded for a while the topic and charged the reporter with asking leading questions, with q laugh, but finally said that those who were un- easy might rest assured that absolute y no unreasonable increases would be made on industrial properties here
 We have come here" said Mir. Long. "to see for ourselves the situation. We have been over portion of the state as is well known. In all our work there has been but one appeal from our decision, and that was the local Birmingham Railway, Light and Power company. That appeal was from a decision rendered upon the properties whose valuation the company itself fixed
 MT. Long, does the commission ln- tend to employ an expert to figure out industrial taxation values here?" was asked.
 That depends largely upon what der velops,' answered MT. Long.
 "Presuppose that company fixes the value at S1,00O,00O on a certain unit of It's plant VIII the commission change that. and fl they do, how can the correct value be determined by the commsslon-wil il be done by taking the eompanys word?" was d question put to Mr. Long,
 That will perhaps be the way of 1t. Yes, that will in many cases unquestion- ably be the way of it. answered MT. Long.
 T mean by that that the commission will take the statement of the company unless such information Is manifestly in- accurate. l cannot see now we could suc- cessfully refute a statement made 10 us. That is made plain by referring to the Birmingham Railway, Light and Power company taxation. They assessed the properties at so much. We took their statement and made our assessment. They appealed from that. Such a course will invariably take place in other corporate valuations.
 You speak of a feeling of unrest and apprehension here. I am sure such need l not be the. real case. We have no desirs to cause such feeling. We have a work to perform and that will be done but we have no intention of soaring any corpor- ton into eonvulsions about it's properties. take it that we will be here some time and get in actual connection with the properties. We will try to see how they string out and the statements made to us will determine what the valuations will be-"
 Since being in Birmingham from time to time the state tax commission has visited various industrial plants in tho district It is said they will take glance at practically all of them within reach and make an effort te see how Brmlng- ham has developed lndustrallY during the past few years. The commissioners have looked over some of the properties of tho Tennessee Coal. Iron and Railroad com panV as well as some of the properties of the Illinois Centrafrailroad and others.