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Show Tax Chairman Tells Group To Pay Own Tax Share How to obtain a fair and equitable assessment of property in Utah in order that each taxpayer tax-payer may be required to pay his fair share of taxes, but no more than his fair share, was the problem discussed by Patrick Pat-rick Healy, Jr., chairman of the Utah - state tax commission, before the meeting of county taxing officials Thursday, December De-cember 13. While it may be true that property in Utah is more equitably equit-ably assessed than in some other states, Mr. Healy believes there is still plenty of room for improvement im-provement in Utah assessments. A recent spot survey indicated, Mr. Healy said, that compared with the present market value of residential and farm property, Box Elder County property is assessed at one-third higher than Utah County property. Hence, the average owner of such property pro-perty in Box Elder would contribute con-tribute $4 to the school equalization equali-zation fund for only $3 contributed contri-buted to the same fund by such a resident of Utah county. Within counties far greater discrepancies exist, the spot survey sur-vey indicated. Some land was assessed in Box Elder at 7 per cent of its market value, and i some at 100 per cent. Which means ' that one man may have been paying $14 to' the support of county, school and possibly municipal governments, for every ev-ery $1 another property-owner was paying for the same purposes. pur-poses. As a solution to bring about uniform assessment, Mr. Healy suggested that legislation be enacted en-acted which would make it mandatory man-datory for the state tax commission commis-sion to conduct a complete reappraisal reap-praisal of each county in ' the state at specified intervals, perhaps per-haps once each five years. 'The county assessors' offices would then be responsible for adjustments and processing during dur-ing the intervening years," he said, "but there would be assurance as-surance that assessments would be kept reasonably up to date and relatively uniform over the state. To meet the cost of these reappraisals by the state tax commission, a small percentage could be withheld " from all tax collections by the county treasurers treas-urers and remitted to the state tax commission to finance the staff appraisers required for the task. This charge could ... be shared proportionately by all jurisdictions deriving financial support from the property tax. This would place the cost where it properly belongs. "The increased revenues from property which now escapes taxation tax-ation alone would compensate a thousand-fold for the cost of maintaining the reappraisal staff. "Instead of intervals of as much as twenty years between reassessments, during which time land usage may change completely, or improvements or j remodeling add substantial val-! ues to original structures, there would be no more than a five-year five-year lag between appraisals and assessed valuations. "The functions of the county assessors and their staffs would not be impaired, but would be greatly simplified. The cost would be borne by the local units which spend the proceeds from' the property tax. "There would be reasonable assurance on the part of all taxpayers that their property j was equitably assessed in rela-! tion to other property in their i own jurisdiction and throughout through-out the state. "Unless and until such a step is taken, there will likely continue con-tinue to be wide discrepancies and inequalities in the treatment of the respective classes of property pro-perty for tax purposes, as well as substantial inequalities in the assesscent of similar properties, not only among the various counties, but even within the same county. The tremendous pressure for under - evaluation will continue to keep property values far below the level contemplated con-templated by law, with all of the corollary problems which an inadequate tax base poses." |