The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1919-08-22
STATE TAX COMMISSION

1t has been charged that Nv Johns
ton wants to abolish the Tax Comn1is
sion in order to enable the people of
the Delta section of the state to es
cape paying their taxes. Tie first an
swer TO this is that the governor ap-
points the members of t:72 Tax Com
mission and if Mr.. Johnston ha! amy
idea of using the aftice 81 governor
for the purpose mentioned he would
not have to ask hat II, Commission
be abolished beca,ise he could appoint
a Commission that would DO bis bid
ding. His obiectiol is not to an dc,
of a centralized commission or author
lty to regulate and eGualiza taxes but
Is directed againIt the present spec
: ii law and Is upon the fpi!owing
grounds:
LIST. He contends that the mem
bers of the Commission should be
elected and not appointed.
2nd. He believes that the MEM
bers of the Commission should come
, from the different districts of the
; State.
Bird. He believes that commits
sion should have the authority to en-
force obedience to it's orders through
the courts. The present commission
is without authority.
4th. He opposes the present Com
mission because it does not deal and
cannot deal with property inside the
corporate limits of a city or town, and
therefore in ordering equalization it
dlscriminates against property out
side of the towns. This is due to the
fact that the Commission is only au-
thorized to "equalize between coun-
ties" 1t operates by means of COM
parisOn, ordering a general raising or
lowering of the values of a class of
property. For instance, the Commits
sion can order the Board of Supervi-
sors to raise the values of cleared
land or of uncleared land of a county |
~ per cent, or any per cent they see
fit, upon the theory that the cleared |
land of that county is assessed too |
low, but the Commission cannot order
Board Of Supervisors to raise the !
total value of real property in any
city or town certain per cent be-
cause there is no way to determine |
whether town property is overvalued |
or undervalued. For this reason, while
the Commission has compelled many
counties to raise their values, it has
not been able to order the value of a
single town lot in Mississippi raised
doller. 1t cannot be presumed that all |
tax dodgers in the State live in the
country, and none Of them in cities
or towns. Therefore, a Commission
should be established that would have
power to reach every class of prop
erty.
5th. The Commission is without
authority to deal with the capital
stock of the ordinary business corpor-
alton. 1t may direct Board of Super
visors to raise or lower the value of
mules, horses or other classes of per-
sonal property; it may direct the
Board to raise the value of the CAPT.
tai stock of Banks because the value
of these will be determined from the
report to the State Banking Depart
ment, but there is no way for the
Commission to determine whether the
various private corporation are prop
erly assessed The value of corpora
ton stock in one county can't be COM
pared with that of another county,
and therefore a Commission which
operates by comparison fails to reach
this important class of property. In
fact, almost the only property that is
reached by the Commission is the pro-
perty belonging to the farmer or the
small merchant.
9th. He objects to the Commission
because it is without power to dis
cover and have assessed millions of