Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-01-03
The New Assessment.

The assessors ought not to be criti-
cissd for the increase of forty mill
lions in the local assessments. Nor
should they be criticised because they
did not yield to the strong pressure
applied by some members of the House
District committee to raise arbitrarily
the standard of assessment from two
thirds to full valuation. They do not
deserve to be abused from both ends
OF the line or from either.
The increases which they report cor
rect inequalities in the last assessment
which they have found and mark the
growth in values of certain properties
which they believe to have occurred
since the last assessment. The fig
ures which they report undoubtedly
represent an honest and Intelligent
opinion on these points.
The fault which the community finds Is
not with the work of the assessors in
detail, but with the high standard of as
sessment which they and their 1redeces-
sors have applied, and with the practice
of correcting Inequalities in an already
excessively high assessment by increas-
ing comparative underassessments in
stead of by reducing comparative over
assessments.
In most cities the taxable area is ex
panding by successive annexations of adj
jacent territory between assessments. In
Washington the taxable area is by sue
cessiye condemnations for national pur-
poses steadily contracting. In most
cities the great factories and workshops,
the manufacturing ana Industrial pants,
constitute the most valuable and the
most reliably expanding forms of taxa
BILE real estate In Washington the
great industrial plants belong to the gov
srnment and are exempt from assess
ment.
Inc previous assessment of Washington
reported real estate values in the taxed
fraction Of the non-industrial capital tar
in excess of those reported by the as
SCISSORS In the whole Of larger and richer
industrial and commercial cities. Abso-
lutte proof was furnished that the Wash
inston assessors were applying in practice
= standard OF assessment apparently
hiBher than that applied in any other
American city, even in those cities where
nominally the assessment was at full val
uation- Only the moderate tax rate APP
piled to this excessive assessment to pro-
duce the tax levy made the Washingto-
mans tax burden endurabIe.
The constant swelling OF the valuation
for tax purposes of realty already ex-
cessively valued results inevitably in an
actual reduction of the value OF the prop
erty. Washington believes that the COM
parative generalization OF its aggregate
real estate values has reached the point
where the actual value of this real estate
is decreased by the imposition of a per-
centage of tax burden heavier than the
property can bear.
The real meaning and effect of the
enlargement by forty millions of an ag-
sregate realty assessment already ex-
oessively high should be thoroughly un-
derstood. This understanding is especially
necessary in view Of the fact that some
of the legislators TO whom our interests
are especially confded are contending
that this aggregate assessment should be
further swelled by the addition of some
three hundred and fifty millions
The attempt TO justify an increase by
80 per cent of the general standard of
assessment applicable 10 everybodv's
property. raising ii from a two-thrds
10 full valuation, on the ground that
only the large and not the small tax
payers will suffer, is on the same plane as
the attempt to convince the small property
owner OF Washington that only certain
large property owners have profted by
the differentiation or the nation since
ISIS. with the wonderful development and
prosperity that IL has brought to the cap
itaI as whole. and that only the large
taxpayers and not the small taxpayers
viii suffer from doubling Of everybody's
taxes.
Both propositions insult the Intelligence
OF every reasoning Washingtonian
whether he pays much or little in taxes
In both cases it is the average Washing
ton taxpayer who is helped or hurt, and
nearly all of the Washington taxpayers
are small taxpayers.