Property owners are themselves, however, more responsible than anyone else for the inequities of taxation in our country. It is a common practice of tax assessors to accept the property owner's own statement of the valuation of his property. In an astonishingly large proportion of cases he gives a valuation far below the real one. Even when the assessor inspects the property, it is easy to conceal from his eyes certain forms of personal property, such as money, stocks and bonds, and jewelry. Land and livestock cannot be concealed; and for this reason farmers are likely to pay a heavier share of taxes than others whose property is in less conspicuous forms. But they may make false valuations.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF UNJUST ASSESSMENTS
In one state, where the law requires the assessment of real estate "at its true value in money when sold in the ordinary manner of sale," a study in one township showed that "the average TAX value of farm land in the open country … is $7.89, while the average MARKET value runs around $20. The 73 largest taxpayers give in their farm holdings at values ranging from $6 to $20 an acre. Thus the burden of state and county support falls three or four times as heavily on one acre of farm land as on another—on farms lying side by side.
"When we look at suburban farm land the tax values range from $17 to $2220 an acre.
"But the most amazing 'jokes' appear in the values put by their owners on improved town lots. In the same end of the town we found three handsome town properties worth around $15,000 each, the tax values were $550, $4400, $4950. In another neighborhood, two adjoining homes about equal in value were listed at $500 and $3400; one at about 50 per cent and the other at about 8 per cent of the actual value."
With regard to personal property in the same township, the wealthiest private taxpayer in the township lists household goods and utensils, work-stock, vehicles, money, jewelry … at $216. The next wealthiest private taxpayer covers all these properties with $105. He's a farmer and well-to-do, but his household furniture, farm animals, vehicles, implements, and the like, are worth only $105—on the tax list.
"Another large landowner covers his household goods, farm animals, vehicles, and the like, with $82; another with $457, and another with $2272. The differences lie not so much in the properties as in the consciences of these big landlords."[Footnote: 1 E. C. Branson, A Township Tax-List Study; in North Carolina Club Year Book, 1917-1918, pp. 66, 67 (The University of North Carolina Extension Series No. 30).]
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE HONESTY
Such inequalities as these may be found in almost every tax list in any community. One of the strange things about it is that citizens evade taxation who would not think of being dishonest or unfair in a private business transaction. The reason is not easy to understand. Doubtless it is partly due to the feeling that as long as "everybody does it" it is justifiable. Of course this is not true. One taxpayer is reported as saying, "I feel dog-mean whenever I give in my taxes; but I'm doing as well as the rest and a little better than most."