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Show SEEK TO njUST mm th State Experts Suggest Lower Low-er Valuations for This Year. The state board of cquahzation will suggest to county assessors this var that fS is a fair average value for runge sheep, Iambi and all, throughout the state; for "sheep otherwise assessed" and including in-cluding the pure-bred stock, which is too aluahle to be sent ou the r;mge; ?:;d pet-head pet-head for range cat; le and $10 a euiuuy for bees. The valuations suggested by the board last ear were ?1" a head on r;mg-sheep, r;mg-sheep, on Sheep otherwise assessed and $10 a head on range cattle. No recommendation rec-ommendation was made last year as to the average value of a colony of bees. In forwarding the letter to tho county assessors the state board will call attention atten-tion to the fact that, regardless of its suggestion, it is the duty of the assessors to assess all property at its actual cash value. Experience in this state, board members say, lias been that county assessors in the big stock-raising counties aro prone to assess stock at less than the figure fixed by tho state board, rather than at an increase. The dyecision of the state board was taken after representatives of some of the largest livestock interests of the state had been heard. They suggested that $S a head was a fair average for range ewes and ?5 a head for range lambs. While all the delegates present were also cattlemen cattle-men to some extent, they did not go largely into the matter of cattle. John C, Maokay, former chairman of the Salt Lake county commission, said he had recently re-cently sold some cattle at about 50. Some of the delegates expressed themselves in favor of Utah adopting the Nevada figures fig-ures of $S a head for sheep and $30 a head for cattle as the basic figure. Those represent ing the livestock interests were C. B. Stewart, John C Mackay, W. D. Candland, A. W. Smith, R. H. Winder, James Hooper and Thomas Redmond. Valuations for grazing lands were also under discussion and Mr. Mackay told the board that it had placed grazing lands at their full cash value, while farm lands had been assessed at 30 to 40 per cent too low. The board acknowledged that this had been the case in the past, but asserted that they believed that under the reclassification of farm lands now being be-ing made the farm lands -would be assessed as-sessed at actual value. Allowance would also be possible, under the new system, for waterlogging of lands. It was noted by the board that it is the really high-priced high-priced farm lands that were escaping taxes on their full worth. . Representatives of the Utah Chemical company's plant near Sa'tair, a potash-producing potash-producing plant which found itself virtually vir-tually without a market by the signing of the armistice and which went out of business last April, protested against paying pay-ing 1919 taxes on a valuation of 5-1,000 when the property sold for $l",ri00. They had requested the county commissioners to place a valuation of about $19,00 on the property, which was the salo price, plus the cash on hand last January. The state board said that If the county board presented pre-sented a request, and it were found to be legally possible, the state board will call the county board together as a board of equalization to reconsider this assessment. |