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Show H STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION. H The state board of equalization has issued its yearly statement of Hj Assessed valuations on railroads and other property coming within H "the power of the board to assess. H "We find that the big corporations are escaping their just share H of taxation and that the state board is falling so far short of doing Hl its duty as to cause endless comment. Hj Private property is being taxed almost five times higher than the Hf railroads and the discrimination is being practiced at a time when H the burden of taxation is equivalent to confiscation of the homes of H the poor. H Not long ago the state board pried into the county recorder's Hf office and obtained a list of transfers of real estate in Weber county, Hi, including lots on the outskirts of Ogden which a real estate agent H had sold at a fancy figure. Calling the attention of our county cora- v missioners to the sales, the state equalizers,,, asked if Weber county B property was not valued, too low. One of the commissioners pointed K- out that exceptional sales could not be taken as a basis of valuation H and he offered to sell county tax-sale lots, similar to those quoted, B at a figure SO per cent below the recorded valuation in the stansfer. B The state board is most diligent in boosting the assessed value of M little homes and small farms, but fails to recognize that higher duty H of forcing the big corporations to pay their just dues. B The state board has made repeated requests that Weber county H farm lands be assessed higher and yet, year after year, the board H issues its stereotyped report on the assessed valuation of railroads, H in which the railroad property is assessed at one-fifth of what the H roads are valued at for the purpose of fixing freight and passenger B charges. |