APPROPRIATIONS MADE BY THE TWELFTH LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY TO INSTITUTIONS SHARING THE ONE MILL TAX-Continued. School for Deaf and Dumb, (Devils Lake) An examination of these appropriations shows that a considerable portion of the appropriations are for maintenance purposes. The following tables will show amounts paid to the various institutions by the state treasurer during the past two years: It will thus be seen that the one mill tax does not provide sufficient funds to properly maintain the institutions that are beneficiaries thereof, and that it has been necessary for the legislature to provide, by appropriation, additional maintenance funds. The tax commission has no recommendation to make regarding the matter of the one mill tax. It is content to present the condition, as set forth above, and is ready to give the legislature whatever assistance it will be possible to render in the matter of estimating the total assessed valuation of property upon whatever basis of assessment the legislature may determine. CHAPTER IX. THE COUNTY ASSESSOR SYSTEM. The trend of the age in all the administrative departments of government is toward the centralization of authority in the hands of a few officials who can be held directly responsible either to the executive or the people themselves. The multiplicity of officials, each clothed with little authority, tend to confusion in any administrative undertaking, whether public or private. Nowhere is this more cleary recognized than by taxing experts. It is the general belief among students of taxation, that there should be in each taxing district of the first and second order, an official or board, who is clothed with ample authority to administer the laws governing taxation in a just, businesslike and equitable manner, and who is directly responsible to either a superior of ficial, the executive or the people. This belief has resulted in what is known as the central system of taxation, which, in most states, has resulted in the tax laws being administered by a state tax commission or commissioner and the county assessor. The former is responsible to the governor of the state and the latter to the tax commission. NUMBER OF ASSESSORS IN NORTH DAKOTA. In all the range of the American system of government there is nothing more ludicrous than our attempts at listing taxable property. In North Dakota this year we elected 1445 assessors and empowered them to list and appraise property in their respective taxing districts, placing above them no central authority. What would be thought of a business concern employing this number of men in responsible positions, in as many different localities, which left the administration of all this vast business. to them without central management? Confusion would reign and the business would be foredoomed to failure. Yet we have gone on in North Dakota for twenty-five years electing a large number of assessors, instructing them to list and appraise the taxable property under the constitution and the statutes, and have placed over them no central authority having the power to guide or direct them. The assessors of each county meet at the county seat on the second Saturday in April of each year, receive their books, and after some mutual discussion of their duties, depart to their various taxing districts and begin the listing and appraising of taxable property, with as many standards of ratio and as many theories of value as there are assessors. The result is an assessment which is anything but uniform and which results in a tax burden, unjust and inequitable. PROPERTY LISTED AT UNIFORM VALUE. Unless all taxable property is listed and assessed at its true value or at a uniform ratio of its true value, it is utterly impossible for any board of review or equalization to remedy the defect. When property is not listed it increases the burden of the property already listed, and any raise by a board of equalization simply tends to throw the increased burden upon the citizen already punished by having property which he cannot conceal or which he is too honest not to list. While the board of review. has the power to equalize between individuals, in all instances. it has not the knowledge, and the failure of the assessor to perform his duty cannot be remedied by any device as yet discovered by legislators or administrators. The same is true as between taxing districts. If assessors in different taxing districts do not use the same ratio of value, or the same method of arriving at value, it is difficult for the county board of equalization to always remedy such defects, and the same danger is repeated when the state board of equalization attempts to equalize between countes. There is but one way to secure a just and equitable distribution of the burden of taxation, and that is by securing a uniform, just and equitable assessment. RATIOS USED BY N. D. ASSESSORS. The ineffectiveness of the present method of appraisement was shown by replies received to inquiries sent out shortly after the organization of this commission. The ratios of appraisement to the true value of taxable property as shown by the replies were most astounding, ranging from nothing to 75 per cent. One assessor in Williams County labored under the hallucination that he was returning property for taxation at 75 per cent of its true. value. The favorite ratio was 40 per cent. The range was as follows: All domestic animals, 20, 25, 33-13, 40 and 50 %. |