The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1922-08-03
THE BOARDS OF REVIEW.

The city and county have a lot OF important
boards but now have more important functions
than the boards of review which have started
their annual meetings and the financing Of the
city and county is going to be made,a lot easier
if these boards give intelligent consideration
to the important question Of the taxes which
are to be paid by the people. Fhe city and
county levies are not SO much determined by
the mill tax assessed by the city council and
the county board as they are by the valuations
placed upon property and these valuations are
properly open to the most intelligent consider
alton of these boards Of reviews
Boards of Review usually give most of their
attention to considering protests, 1t is just
possible that the assessment of the man who
does not protest is as much worthy of consider
alton as the assessment of the man who kicks.
Every assessment of property and every as
sessment of income should be considered by
these boards and if the members of these
boards can not give the proper time or can not
give the proper intelligent consideration to as
sessments the city and county will make money
by employing actuaries who will do this work.
We know Of no city in Wisconsin in which
more intelligent consideration of values is CIV
en- by the assessor than in Kenosha Kenosha
has had for years excellent service in the as
sessment of it's real and personal property, but
the assessor himself is anxious that the Board
of Review should act in real capacity and re-
view these assessments. The assessor is not
going to get peeved If the board decides that
the assessment he has made is too low. He is
not going to get peeved and quit if changes in
the assessment are made. He is honest and
painstaking in his work but he is willing to ad-
nit that there may be information withheld
from him which may tend to change values.
The county income tax board has big job
before it. If errors can be found by the state
tax commission in the returns of corporations
certainly the same kind of errors can be found
in the return of individual income tax returns.
The vast number of returns made in Kenosha
county-there is something like ten thousand
of them-should open very profitable field
of investigation. The board is not without
power to act and in fact the proper carrying out
of its legal duties urges upon it the necessity
of action. Arbitrary assessments are not sat
isfactory either to the county or to the indi-
vidual so assessed. The best possible way
for mans income to be properly assessed is
with the board of review knowing what his
income was and not some one guessing what
he might have made,
The board has full power to call in dein-
quents and see to it that they file proper re-
turns. The board has full power to correct the
returns already filed.
The course of least resistance is to have some
one write an arbitrary assessment and send the
taxpayer bill but this course is not counted
on to bring fair distribution of the income
tax burden. If il is worth while for the state to
spend hundreds of thousand dollars on search
ing out the real facts in regard to incomes
certainly it is worth while to have Individual
returns given the same careful scrutiny The
purpose of these boards Of review is to get an
equal division of the burden of taxation. There
is no suggestion of depressing any one but at
the same time there is no suggestion of leni-
ency which will let some people get away with
out being taxed or with payment of small
proportion of the tax they should pay.
The Board of Review, if they work with a de-
sire of doing real service Tor the people, have
real job,
THE VALUE OF A BOY.