History and Results of the Michigan Appraisal.
Based on the valuation of 1900, the Board of State Tax Commissioners was enabled to comply with the statute in reporting to the Legislature. New laws were passed, sundry suits were brought, and, finally, the case of the Michigan Central Railroad vs. Perry F. Powers, Auditor-General, and a number of other cases in behalf of other roads, were brought to trial before the United States Court for the Western District of Michigan.
This Michigan Central case was a suit to restrain the collection of taxes based on the new assessment, the railroads claiming that their property was assessed at full value, while general properties of the State were assessed at a considerably lower percentage than full value. This suit was essentially a valuation of the railroad properties as of April, 1902. This work was done along the same line as the former valuation, by a portion of the same staff. The old work was brought down to date, and certain special studies were made, which resulted in a change of right-of-way valuation, as has been related.
In the trial of the case of Michigan Central Railroad vs. Powers, the two valuations were fully testified to by all the men engaged, and the record relative to the appraisal fills several volumes.
Subsequently, in 1906, Professor Cooley was engaged by the Attorney-General, and, re-assembling the staff, brought the work down to date as of April, 1906.
There has been no permanent force engaged on the work in Michigan, and the re-appraisals have only been made as actual necessity demanded.
Market Value of Stocks and Bonds.—During the progress of the appraisal of 1900 an independent force of men was engaged in studying the market values of stocks and bonds of Michigan roads with a view to securing information on every possible line that would aid the appraiser in reaching proper conclusions, or enable him to check his figures. These figures were used only as a check, and no report of the details of this work was submitted.
Error in Published Reports as to Michigan Work.—In several articles descriptive of the Michigan work, one quite serious misstatement of fact has inadvertently been made. The writer is not quite sure how or where the wrong impression originated, but it has been noted in several articles and editorials.
Substantially, all accounts are similar to that of Professor Taylor,[[6]] which is:
"In looking over the notes and results of the work done in Michigan, it was noticed that Mr. Cooley's engineers, car-men and other experts went over the property of each railway company and enumerated and valued the same, and then the railway company generally had its own men perform the same work in order to check up the appraisal made by the State authorities. Thus, this expensive work was unnecessarily duplicated."