Evening star., 1935-04-14
larger industrial Baltimore, or Mil

larger industrial Baltimore. or Mil
waukee, or Buffalo.
That while Washington exceeds the
next city in population, Minneapolis
by only 10000. the taxed property
here is almost four times as valuable
as the taxed property of Minneapolis
That If you took all Of Kansas City.
Seattle and Jersey City-with COM
bined population of 1,l08, ,700-their
aggregate full value of property (ac-
cording to the Treasury's statistical
estimates) would be less than that OF
washington by more than $80, 0,000,0 ,00O'
Results of Dubious Accuracy.
It would be hard to convince any
body that any such conditions pre-
vail, and that any such comparisons
are indicative of the actual facts. Yet
the comparison of the reported full
value assessments of the cities, as
made above, is merely another way Of
using the figures which the Treasury
experts used in their comparison of
tax rates and on which they based, in
large part, their conclusion as to the
low tax burden in Washington.
In former years the Treasury ex-
pertS' method of comparison has been
examined more thoroughly. with even
more unbelievable results - results
which showed, for instance, that the
individual taxpayer in San Antonio,
Tex, was far more highly taxed than
the taxpayer in Chicago. and more
than twice as highly taxed as the tax
payer in San Francisco, but not near
ly so highly taxed as the taxpayer in
jacksonville, who was taxed more than
twice as much as the taxpayer in
Miami.
For in all comparisons made by this
method the faulty and unreliable ele-
ment-generally apologized for by
every agency which has used its
the reported ratios, or percentages, OF
assessment to true value. Such a
figure is almost impossible to obtain
with any degree Of accuracy, because
city assessors differ not only in their
judgment of what constitutes real
value, but in their ability to estimate
the percentage of assessment to true
value; in their practice of assessing
the taxpayers who elect them to
office and in their honesty in state
ments concerning compliance with
law which, usually. requires 100 per
cent assessment. If this basic ele-
ment in tax comparisons is faulty,
then the tax comparisons themselves
are naturally faulty.
NIL N-rI-x:.n
The yardstick used by the Census
Bureau, the Governments agency for
cities, is composed of accurate sta
tistics relating to tax levies, receipts
from the several forms of taxation,
governmental cost payments, etc,
which are gathered from the cities
and tabulated by the Census Bureau S
own experts. The difference between
the Treasury experts method and the
| Census experts method is that the
former deals with reported, guessed
at figures, from which a statistical
symbol is created, while the latter
deals in actual figures.
Two Comparisons Made.
The difference in the showings made
as to tax burdens is indicated in COM
pairing the Treasury experts table OF
adjusted tax rates with a table pre-
pared by the Citizens Joint Commit
tee on Fiscal Relations in 1892 The
Treasury experts draw conclusions
from results obtained by the "ad-
i,1ctolv 10 a y,nothnd Tho nfhcr
table compared actual tax levies and
actual population figures and expressed
the results in per capitas. In both
tables the cost of debt is eliminated
from the comparison, but both tables
include the element of State taxes (as
the Treasury table did not eliminate
this item).