| Show THE VEXATIOUS TAX QUESTION THE most common topic of conversation vers stiOn in this city is the tax question high taxes are seldom popular no matter how many improvements prove ments are made or needed paying for them does not commend itself to the ordinary mind which is naturally selfish in the present case the irritation is aggravated byl by the feeling that neither actual nor projected public improvements seem to 0 o I 1 call for the excessive amount which will be raised through the enormous increase in assessments the advance in taxes of from two to four times the former amounts is a fact the responsibility for it is a debatable question sonae people place it upon the officers I 1 others upon the new dew revenue taw law the matter should be correctly understood and the public will 0 10 o well to examine it carefully before forecasting casting reflections upon anyone or anything we will begin with thelah th the jaw elaw because the action of the officers it i based upon the law at the last session of the legislature several important por tant changes were made in the statute relating to revenue A among mong them were these the maximum amount of taxes to be ue levied vied upon property was reduced from faolu twelve mills to seven mills on the le dollar that is two nills for territorial purposes instead of three rau three mills for school purposes as before and not to exceed two mills for county purposes instead of te in addition to this the county anty courts may assess a tax for school purposes not to exceed two abuls jus on ola tile the dollar this however is 18 tor for the purpose of establishing tree schools and aad will not take effect this year so that the revenue law instead Ja stead of increasing the taxes reduced d the maximum rate five mills on oil the dollar or nearly one half the former re revenue ventie law required property t to be assessed at a fair ach cash valuation the new law groppell dr lapped the word fair and required q property to be assessed at its cash value there were gook goo rel reasons lOns for this assessors in some coun counties counting had placed property far below its actual market value the discretion which they construed the law to bestow upon them was taken advantage of and loud complaints were heard of the discrepancy in values in counties to the disadvantage of salt lake weber and one or two other populous counes counties ties which thus paid a great deal of Iv revenue eue for the benefit of those counties where the assessments were placed too low it was determined to require the assessors throughout the territory to be reasonably uniform in their valuations so the provisions were made which would compel the assessors to place property at its cash value that this discrimination might be stopped here is is the section of the law designed for the purpose the assessor and his sureties shall be liable on his official bonds for all taxes on property within or known to the assessor to be asses assessable e within the county which through h his i failure or neglect is un essed I 1 which has been by him W wilfully ivull assessed at less than the cas cash value I 1 but it was not expected that boom values would be placed on property it was not intended ended that the taxpayer should be oppressed on the contrary the evident intention of the legislature was to relieve the property owner of excessive burdens in this regard and hence the reduction in the rate as we have explained bove above and that there might be no improper interpretation pre tation os ali the words cash mccash value 12 the following definition was given in the law the terms value and fair cash value mean the amount at which the property would be taken in payment of a just debt due from a solvent debtor thus it is clear that the legislature had no intention to impose upon the taxpayer nor to give the assessors the right to take fancy figures and speculative prices as the basis for their assessments the old law provides and the P provision is still in force that real estate taxable under this act shall be e listed and assessed as valued on the first day of january in each year all 11 other pro property perky taxable under this act shall be listed and assessed as valued on the day of assessment unfortunately on the of january 1890 there was a terrible inflation of values on real estate since then there has been a considerable decline it seems that the assessments sinthe in the city have been made on the market value at that date no one can deny that property has appreciated in cash value whether it has actually gone up from one hundred to four hundred per cent is an open question it is not surprising that there is much complaint over the increased taxes because in so many instances they are enormously in excess of former amounts but we desire our reders readers to understand that circumstances rather than the law or the officers are largely responsible for thio increase ia crease booms are not good for the community at large they are excessively ces injurious to the poor property owner the possessor of a small home which he does not wish to sell the revenue law is reasonable reason aole enough to any reasonable mind the assessment has no doubt been made with the intention of conforming to the law the balloon figures which have been put upon property are the cause of the trouble and actual sales of real estate can be cited as evidence of the cas cash h value of contiguous property the question which may be reasonably asked of persons who object to their assessments is if you owed a debt and your property was to be taken in payment would you let it go at less than the amount at which it is valued on the assessment roll or rather would the property bring the amount at which it is assessed in payment of a just debt that is the basis of assessment as required by law if that is its actual cash value tb ahn n the taxes as assessed must be paid and the fault does not lie with the law nor the officers but with the boom and those who have caused fictitious values to be placed upon the roal estate of the city since writing on this subject we 11 have received a communication from the county assessor which will be found in another column the gentleman is very much mistaken in saying that we have made it to that the assessor of this county has gone beyond reason in the valuation of property or in anything else we said nothing whatever about the assessor we did not dot make him responsible s pon sible or blamable in any degree however he now assumes the responsibility and of course it is not our place to relieve him of it however we were under the impression obtained from him that he had learned at what value the city assessor intended to pla place cereal real estate on his list in certain portions of the city and had to be guided somewhat by that also that he had not in any instance assessed property in excess ot of the figures placed upon it by the city assessor and we viewed this as having considerable bearing upon the county asses assessors responsibility and as relieving him of some censure that might be placed upon him by dissatisfied taxpayers now as to his challenge we do not want to single out any special piece of property but will re repeat pear the law does not speak of market value or speculative prices but defines cash value in plain terms which we have already quoted and we are of the opinion that the law thus interpreted does not require the very high taxation which is now imposed upon the people if the assessor will read carefully the article to which he takes exception and not no take to himself remarks that do not relate reate to him specially he will perhaps be a little less rattled also he w will III find that wed we dia inot not say the revenue law does not justify the placing of the property at a cash value valtie 11 nor anything like it so his comments on those remarks are a waste of words we think now as we did when the law was passed and some of the assessors assessor ls were very much agitated over the provision making themi them liable on their bonds for wilful neglect or wilfully assessing property at lesa than cash value that they were unnecessarily disturbed it its wilful wrong dulog that the law to is aimed at and it is a reasonable valuation of property which the law intends we do not think the assessor is wise in rushing luto into print on this question and we have nothing to retract in relation to it we believe he is an honest and efficient officer and hats has done what he considered lawful and proper under the circumstances in the discharge of his unpleasant duties and we have no desire or intension to injure or blame him the fact remains however that the public are excited and we think not without good and sufficient reason |
