The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1916-03-09
ASSESSORS MEETING
At Court House Yesterday Attended
by II of the 21 Assessors of
Mile Laos County,.
State Tax Commission Represented by
Hon James T.. Hale Who
Talked Interestingly.

:. The meeting of assessors of Mile
Laos county at the court house yester-
day was not as largely attended as
expected, due no doubt to the deplor-
able condition of the roads. There are
FL assessment districts in the county,
and II of these were represented.
Hon. James T. Hale of the state tax
commission addressed the assessors
in regard to their duties in valuing
the real and personal property of the
county this year, and his remarks were
interesting and instructive. He told
the assessors that their main duty was
to give all property it's true and full
market value and then to assess it for
the various percentages of it's true and
full value as provided by the classified
assessment law now in force in this
state
The amount Of money raised by tax
alton does not depend upon the as
SCISSORS figures. The legislature,
county commissioners, town meetings,
village and city aldermen vote the
amount to be raised by taxation.
Whether each and every taxpayer
pays his just and due proportion of
the taxes voted depends of course upon
the valuation placed upon his prop
erty by the assessor, so every tax
payer is more interested in seeing that
every other taxpayers property is
valued at it's percentage of it's true and
full value than the assessor.
Complaints Of over-assessment are
quite frequent, but they mostly come
from the taxpayer comparing his tax
able valuation with his neighbours and
If his neighbours property is underval-
ued by the assessor he Immediately
thinks he is ovevalued, whereas in
fact his valuation may be just right
or even low. So it becomes very i'm
portant for the assessor to be careful
and; value all property at it's true and
full value and then assess it at it's
proper percentage of true and full
value, otherwise he will hear many
complaints and he justly should.
The taxpayer who is undervalued
pays less taxes than he should, and
consequently the man whose property
is valued as it should be pays more
taxes than he should. He practically
pays part Of the taxes of the man who
is undervalued. Mr.. Hale then said
that it depended upon the assessors
as to whether the taxpayers had a
fair deal or not. If the assessments
were all fairly made it then depended
upon the voters whether their taxes
were high or low according to the
amounts they or their representatives
voted to spend.
Out of every hundred dollars of tax.
es. paid by the taxpayers Of Mile Laos
county this year 1882 will go to the
state; $4,000 will go to education
$26.98 will go to the road and bridgt
fund; $15.68 will go to the county
$1O.19 will go to cities and villages
1884 will go to townships; and fo7
every dollar the county pays the statt
in taxes the county gets back from
the state $3.43 for roads, schools, etc
This shows that more than all thu
amount of taxes paid by this county il
spent in this county, and that the main
portion of it goes to education an(
roads and bridges. Plated propert!
(village and city property is assessed
at 1920 Of it's full and true value. I'm
plated PROPERTY farm property i
assessed at 33 1870 of it's full AM
true value.
This is in compliance with the new
so-called classified assessment law AM
apparently seemed just and equitable
to the legislature, and whatever tn
assessors personal view or opinion