Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1914-08-19
STATE BOARD HAS
REAL PROBLEM TO
SOLVE This YEAR
How to Provide for Revenue
in Face Of Decreased Val
uation Is Question Which
Must Be Answered.

1.-THE Eighteen Million Dollar Mys-
tery!"
That seems to be the appropriate
title for the problem the state board OF
equalization of Idaho is now bending
all its efforts to solve and 1t promises
to be a more difficult one than the
Million Dollar Mystery" for no less
an amount than 1s,0o0,000 has shrunk-
en- away from the real property assess
ment of this state this year as COM
pared to the real property assessment
last year. Judging from the proceed
ings of the board today the puzzle is
going to take some time to solve.
The state tax commission through
it's chairman, Axel P. Ramstedt, and
its tax experts was before the board
most Of the day explaining why it had
recommended certain increases In most
instances and some decreases in 9TH
ers in the agricultural classification,
including agricultural, grazing and
waste lands, together with business and
town lots. The assessors of the re-
spective counties were also present to
protest against the raises or the de-
creases and at times some very lively
clashes took place.
The matter of consideration OF the
timber assessments ON which there
promises to be a bitter fight-had not
been reached late today and from the
rate the board is going may not be
reached until tomorrow.
Two Serious Problems.
Two serious problems confronted the
state board. Briefly stated, they are
these:
why Is 1t that practically every real
property abstract reported by the re-
spective counties this year shows a de-
cided loss in acres of agricultural
lands?
Why is there such a heavy shrinkage
in valuations in this classification?
In the face of these two queries 1t
would appear that the answer was that
because there had been loss in agri-y
cultural lands there naturally would
follow q loss In valuations. But the
abstracts show that in the land CLASH
fication, taken as a whole, including
grazing and. waste land with agricul-
tural, there has been no loss this year
in the acreage over the acreage report
ed last year.
Many Reasons Given.
Assessors who were called upon
frankly admitted that, in their opinion,
values had been inflated heretofore and
this year they tried to bring them down
TO a normal basis with the result that
II was found necessary to reclassify the
lands, taking acreage that had been
classified as agricultural and placing II
in the grazing classification, where,
they claim, it should have baen CLASH
fled in the first place, and removing
some of the acreage classified as graz
ing into the waste land classification.
They claimed that this result ed In a
shortage in the agricultural land clas-
sification and usually an increase IN
the grazing land classification as well
as an increase in the WASTE lands.
During the morning session the
board had considered but five or six
counties, including Bannock. Bear Lake,
Bingham. Boise. Canyon and others. An
illustration Of this shrinkage is shown
in Bear Lake county, for instance. The
abstract this year shows a loss of &c.
AIT acres of agricultural land over the
reported acreage of last year and in
this item a loss of $356,0S4 In valua-
lions. The assessor of the county ex-
planned that the read1ustment of the
classification accounted for part of the
loss and the balance was accounted for
by the fact the Utah Power & Light
company secured a right of way
through part of the agricultural land
and in another instance built a canal
which flooded a lot more.
Counties Protest.
Bingham county made a vigorous
protest through its assessor over the
increase recommended by the state tax
commission in its agricultural and
grazing land valuations. 1t was claimed
that Bingham county has been assessed
high for the past three years and that
although this year It's assessment shows
higher valuation than the grazing
and agricultural lands in its neighbor-
Ing county on the north of Bonneville
and on the southwest by Power the
commission recommends an additional
increase, but falls to increase the agri-
cultural and grazing lands of the other
two counties. 1t was explained by
Chairman Ramstedt that the reason
this was done was because the COM
mission believes from the data 1t has
that the agricultural and grazing lands
of Bingham county are of more value
than lands in these two classifications
in the other two counties and that in
order to give a fair valuation and