The Pulaskian., 1917-01-19

case of The Fort Smith and Van Bu-
 ren Bridge Company, reported in the
 62 Ark. D. 451, 50 per cent basis of as sessment has been adopted both by or
 ficials and taxpayers as the standard.
 In this case the property of the bridge
 company had been assessed by the
 assessor at it's real value, while all
 other real property of the county had
 been assessed at one-half of it's real value The bridge company appealed
 from the assessment on the ground that it was unjust and unequal in that it imposed a greater burden upon the
 property of the bridge company than upon other property in the county. In setting aside the assessment and or
 dering it reduced to one-half the
 amounts returned by the assessor, the Court said, "The duty to contrib ute to the support of the State Gov ernment, by payment of taxes, is i'm posed upon all persons owning prop erty subject to taxation. The Con- stitution provides that this burden shall be apportioned among them ac- cording to the value of their property, to be ascertained as directed by law
 When, therefore, the property of A few is taxed according to it's value, and of all others at one-half it's value, then the few are required to contrib ute double their portion of the burden. This is manifestly wrong and justice demands that it be redressed when ever it can be done conformably to the law
 'The construction placed upon this ruling of the court has been erron- eous in that the taxpayer has taken it to mean that the question of the value of his property is not the para mount one involved. In other words, it is commonly understood to mean that the only requirement. is that the valuation shall be capitalized, it seems to have developed into race between the taxpayers in the various counties of the state, condoned by the asses sors themselves, in many instances, to put this capitalized value at the lowest figure possible. In doing this, of course, the necessary result is an In. creased rate on the one hand and a deficit of public funds on the other.
 Since the fifty per cent standard has been adopted, property in Arkan- sas has not averaged more than a 30 per cent assessment, with ridicu- lous variations between counties, Per ry county averaging 77 per cent and Benton only IT per cent, and the situa- tion is becoming worse from year to year. Under this sealing system Of assessing below actual value the state puts itself in an apparent attitude of being a high tax state, which tends to frighten away homeseekers and in- vestors, when, as a matter of fact, the actual rate of about TT cents per S100, of the estimated true value of prop erty is lower than the actual rate in half the states of the Union. To quote the recent report of the Tax Commission, It is not so material as to what percentage of it's actual value property is assessed, as that prop erty be assessed and at a uniform value, so that each taxpayer will bear an equal burden of taxation, but as our constitution, in effect, and all stat ute laws require that property be as- sessed at actual value in money, it is difficult for assessing officers to make an assessment at any percen- tage of value other than one hundred per cent I shall approve of any leg islation passed by the General As sembly designed to straighten our ex- isting laws with reference to one hundred per cent basis of assess ment."