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The commission desires to signify its approval of the law creating the office of county supervisor of assessment as well as the work of the supervisors during the first, and necessarily most difficult year of their existence.

It is established beyond controversy that they have succeeded in having placed on the assessment rolls much property heretofore escaping taxation, and have to that extent relieved the honest citizen who by having had all his property assessed has as conscientiously abstained from cheating all his neighbor taxpayers as he would refrain from cheating them as individuals in his private dealings. Recent annual meetings of the county boards have quite generally followed the reports made to them by the supervisors in equalizing taxes between the different municipalities.

The correspondence during the assessment season with assessors, members of board of review and supervisors of assessments has been very voluminous and has necessitated the investigation of almost every subject that might be conceived as arising under. the laws. In former years such correspondence has been carried on directly with assessors and boards of review. In 1902, where correspondence was had with such officials a copy was mailed to the supervisor who in that manner was enabled to advise other assessors of his county when the same question presented itself.

It is not the purpose here to enter into a detailed discussion of what may be deemed incongruities and imperfections in present laws. Many such have come to our attention and will be presented to the legislature in the form of a proposed bill or as a supplemental report at a later date. They are as a rule of a purely administrative character and do not go to the merits of the general property tax. For that reason it is deemed best not to enter into a detailed discussion of them here.

CHAPTER II.

THE STATE ASSESSMENT.

Chapter 237, Laws of 1901, provides that "The commissioner of taxation, the first assistant commissioner of taxation and the second assistant commissioner of taxation shall constitute a state board of assessment," and, after prescribing the duties of such board, repeals section 1069 of the Statutes of 1898 which provided that "The secretary of state, state treasurer and attorney general shall constitute a state board of assessment."

It was probably the intention of the legislature by the act of 1901 to confer upon the members of the state tax commission all the duties with reference to assessments exercised by the then existing state board of assessment. But chapters 111, 112, 113 and 114 of the Laws of 1899 had made it the duty of the board as then constituted to assess the property of express companies, sleeping car companies, freight line companies and equipment companies. The said several acts of 1899 were not repealed by or in any manner referred to in the law of 1901 and the old state board has continued to perform the duties therein prescribed. If it is desired, as seems reasonable, to substitute the members of the tax commission for the old state board of assessment in the matters referred to in the several acts of 1899, chapter 237, Laws of 1901, should be amended by relieving the officers constituting the old board of those duties and transferring all the powers and duties of the old board to the new board.

With this view of the act of 1901 the duties of the tax commission as a state board of assessment were confined to the assessment of the counties of the state. A part of chapter 237,

Laws of 1901, relating to the manner of making the state assessment reads as follows:

"The secretary of state shall prepare and lay before such board the latest statistics of population, local valuation of property and such other statistical information as he may be able to obtain in relation to the several counties in the state, which in his judgment will assist said board in its deliberations. The board shall carefully examine said statistics, and from all the sources of information accessible to it shall determine and assess the relative value of all property subject to taxation in each county. It shall set down in a list all the counties, opposite to the name of each county the valuation thereof so determined by it, which shall be the full value according to its best judgment."

The tax commission had in the pursuance of its duties gathered much information as to the value of property in the state which was valuable to the members sitting as a state board. The assessments of 1901 and 1902 have been made by the new board. In 1901 many hearings were given to delegations representing counties. A lesser number appeared in 1902. The totals of state and local assessments for a number of years past are as follows:

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The very large increase during the years 1901 and 1902 in the valuation fixed by the state board as well as in the local assessments is the direct result of the efforts made to secure a better compliance with the law. In arriving at the valuations. the state board acted somewhat independently of the local assessments. As stated in the former report, nearly all local assessors used a ratio only of the true value for purposes of assessment, and this ratio varied in the different counties and in the different assessment districts within the same county. Using the local assessment for state assessment purposes would have rewarded those counties using a low ratio of assessment at the expense of those which more nearly approached a full value assessment. The greater the departure from compliance with lawful requirements to assess at full value the larger would have been the reward. This injustice the state board has endeavored to meet and this it has approximately succeeded in doing at least so far as the real property is concerned. As to personal property the difficulty arising from evasion and failure to discover certain classes and getting them on the assessment rolls has been overcome only in part. It is to be hoped that with closer local supervision those who have succeeded in shifting the public burdens from their own shoulders to those of their more honest and perhaps less prosperous neighbors will, during the next assessment season, be more adequately reached. As to personal property its discovery and listing must depend largely on the efficient work of assessors. and county supervisors of assessments.

The local assessments of 1902 show very promising improvements, but it must be remembered that such assessments were not available to the state board in making its assessment this year. With the experience gained by the county supervisors of assessments during the first year of their service much greater progress can confidently be expected during the next

season.

REAL ESTATE VALUATIONS.

As to the valuations of real estate the state board used the data of sales and assessed valuations of the same lands furnished to the secretary of state by the registers of deeds and county clerks.

For the information of those to whom the first biennial report of the commission may not be available the method pursued will be briefly stated.

Section 1007, Stat. '98, is as follows:

"Each register of deeds shall annually, on or before the first day of September, make and transmit to the secretary of state a short detailed statement, in tabular form, of all the sales of real estate made and recorded in his county during the preceding year, except such as appear to be made for a nominal consideration, and those in which the description does not substantially correspond with the description in the assessment roll. Such statement shall show:

1. The date of conveyance.

2. A short description and the quantity of land conveyed thereby.

3. The consideration stated in said deed.

4. The assessed valuation of the property as shown by the last assessment roll, and file a duplicate thereof with the county clerk on or before the first day of October thereafter.

In such statement the sales shall be classified so as to show those in each section and in each town, city or village separately; and the county clerk shall cause an abstract of such statement showing the total number of acres and of platted lots in each town, city or village so sold, with the consideration and the assessed value in total to be printed and laid before the county board at its annual session in November in each year."

The above statute was first enacted in 1873, and Wisconsin is believed to have been the first state to enact such a law. For 27 years therefore (excluding 1885 for which no record can be found) a memorandum of each sale of real estate made for a bona fide consideration and recorded in the office of the register of deeds of the county where the lands are located has been filed in the office of the secretary of state. This is a very important statutory provision and has furnished much valuable information to the commission and to the state board.

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