It is necessary, therefore, for the government to assess the value of the property (or privilege) of each citizen, and it has its organization for this purpose.  Each local community The assessment of (township, county, or city) has one or more tax ASESSORS, who endeavor to ascertain by inquiry values or inspection the value of each citizen’s property.  The sum of the individual assessments constitutes the assessment valuation for the town, or county, or city; and the sum of the valuations of these local communities constitutes the valuation for the entire state.

THE RATE OF TAXATION

The third step is to ascertain the rate of taxation.  This is found by dividing the total amount to be raised by taxation The rate of by the total property valuation of the county or taxation state, as the case may be.  If the amount to be raised is $500,000, and the property valuation is $10,000,000, the rate would be 5 per cent, and the tax is levied against each citizen at this rate.  A citizen who owns twice as much property as another should pay twice as much tax.  Each should pay according to his ability.

DIFFICULTY OF JUST ASSESSMENT

This seems like a simple procedure; but it is very difficult to get a just result.  The difficulty lies chiefly in the assessment It requires a good deal of intelligence to assess property fairly, even with the best of intentions.  Assessors are not always competent.  Two assessors may differ in their judgment, so that assessments in one part of the community may run at a lower level than in another part.  Thus assessments vary in their fairness in different townships of the same county, and in different counties of the same state.  An attempt is made to avoid this by means of county and state tax equalization boards, which seek to adjust differences of this sort.  But their efforts are only partially successful.

RESPONSIBILITY OF PROPERTY OWNERS

Property owners are themselves, however, more responsible than anyone else for the inequities of taxation in our country.  It is a common practice of tax assessors to accept the property owner’s own statement of the valuation of his property.  In an astonishingly large proportion of cases he gives a valuation far below the real one.  Even when the assessor inspects the property, it is easy to conceal from his eyes certain forms of personal property, such as money, stocks and bonds, and jewelry.  Land and livestock cannot be concealed; and for this reason farmers are likely to pay a heavier share of taxes than others whose property is in less conspicuous forms.  But they may make false valuations.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF UNJUST ASSESSMENTS