In most of the States of the Federal Union the tax laws require that the assessment of all property shall be at its full and fair cash value; and the judicial authorities of the United States have furthermore held that the requirement of approximative equality inheres in the very nature of the power to tax, irrespective of any constitutional or statute provisions.
In the State of New York each assessor on the completion of his official labors subscribes an oath of which the following is the material portion:
"We do severally depose and swear that we have set down in the foregoing assessment roll all the real estate in, according to our best information, . . . and that we have estimated the value of said real estate at the sums which a majority of the assessors have decided to be the full value thereof."And the law further provides that "every assessor who shall willfully swear false in taking and subscribing said oath, shall be guilty of and liable to the penalties of willful and corrupt perjury."
It is difficult to see how language, other than this, could be made more clear and explicit; and it is accordingly evident that if the law fails in its execution, as it certainly does, the fault is not in the statute but in its administration.
Let us now see what are the acknowledged facts in respect to the valuation of real property in New York and other States where the observance of substantially like conditions are imperative.
In some instances in New York the valuation of real estate for taxation is reported as low as twenty per cent of its real value. In a majority of cases in the country the rate varies from twenty-five to thirty-five per cent, and rises in the cities to fifty and possibly sixty per cent of the maximum. In one case, mentioned in the report of the State assessors in 1879, two adjoining counties of the State made a difference of twenty thousand dollars per mile in assessing the same railroad. In short, there can not probably be found a single instance in the whole State, unless possibly in the case of certain unoccupied lands, the property of non-residents, where the law as respects the valuation of real property is fully complied with, and where the oaths of the assessors are not wholly inconsistent with the exact truth. The official reports of other States abound with like reports of flagrant inequalities in the assessment of real property. As a rule, where assessors are dependent for their tenure of office on political favoritism, there is no pretense, notwithstanding their oath, of complying with the law.[1]
- ↑ "The strife between counties to reduce assessments has not ceased, and in all probability will not as long as assessors are elected, or selfishness be a passion in the human breast."—Report of the California State Board for the Equalization of Taxes, 1885–‘86.
