AN ARGUMENT FOR A BILL 
 
 to provide for 
 
 Original Assessments 
 
 and tHe 
 
 Correction of Original Assessments 
 
 of 
 
 Real and Personal Property 
 
 and the creation of the offices of 
 
 CITY BOARDS OF ASSESSORS 
 COUNTY ASSESSOR 
 COUNTY TAX APPEAL JURIES 
 
Original Assessments 
 
 and the 
 
 Correction of Original Assessments 
 
 of 
 
 Real and Personal Property 
 
 AN ARGUMENT 
 
 In Support of a Bill to provide for Original Assessments of Real and 
 Personal Property, and for the Correction of all Original Assess- 
 ments of such Property, by whomever made, and to 
 repeal certain sections of the General Code 
 
 By 
 
 ALLEN R. FOOTE 
 
 President, Ohio State Board of Commerce 
 President, International Tax Association 
 
 Published by the 
 
 OHIO STATE BOARD OF COMMERCE 
 COLUMBUS 
 

 3 -^t) 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. Page 
 
 The determination of the taxable value of property is a professional and 
 
 judicial, not a legislative function 5 
 
 Experience is the factor of highest value 6 
 
 Ample compensation. Continuous employment 7 
 
 The fundamental purposes of assessing property for taxation 7 
 
 Undervaluation is the cause of nearly all injustice in taxation 9 
 
 County boards of equalization confirm, they do not correct, undervalua- 
 tions. All county boards of equalization should be abolished 10 
 
 The state board of equalization confirms, it cannot correct, undervalua- 
 tions. It should be abolished 11 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Chaotic condition of assessment work . . : 13 
 
 Quadrennial assessors of real property; their election and term of service 13 
 Conditions under which quadrennial assessors have done their work 
 
 This office should be abolished 14 
 
 Annual assessors of personal property 16 
 
 All personal property is never discovered nor fully valued. The office 
 
 of annual assessor of personal property should be abolished 17 
 
 City boards of review and equalization. All such boards should be 
 
 abolished 18 
 
 County boards of review and equalization. All such boards should 
 be abolished 18 
 
 PART III. 
 
 The present condition of assessment work 20 
 
 The assessment of personal property is a farce 21 
 
 What will taxpayers do? 21 
 
 What taxpayers can do. A permission to increase taxes. A tax rate 
 of less than one per cent 22 
 
 Assessments cannot be corrected in time for the 1911 tax list. Tax lists 
 should be completed on the following dates: 
 
 Taxing districts, first Monday in July; 
 
 Counties, first Monday in August; 
 
 State, first Monday in October. 
 
 Tax payable one-half in December, 1911, one-half in June, 1912 23 
 
 3 
 
PART IV. Page 
 
 The old machinery to be discarded 25 
 
 The new machinery to be installed: City Boards of Assessors, County 
 
 Assessors, County Tax Appeal Jury 25 
 
 County tax appeal juries 27 
 
 Taxpayers’ right to protest 27 
 
 Taxpayers’ right of appeal: 
 
 1. County tax appeal jury; 
 
 2. Tax Commission of Ohio; 
 
 3. Common pleas court. 
 
 Decision of common pleas court final 28 
 
 Assessors to defend assessments 28 
 
 Taxes to be paid when due; refund of excess taxes 29 
 
 No abatement or refund of taxes to be allowed except by decision on 
 
 protest 29 
 
 Results expected 29 
 
 PART V. 
 
 Making the 1911 tax list 31 
 
 The completion of the 1911 tax list must be forced. How this is to be 
 
 done 31 
 
 Protests and corrections 32 
 
 No injustice to taxpayers will result from forcing the tax lists as pro- 
 posed 33 
 
 By forcing the tax list as proposed, a great gain will be made for every 
 
 taxing district 34 
 
 An enormous number of protests expected 35 
 
 The burden of the work must fall on 1911 36 
 
 The advantages and the prestige of a full-valued tax list belong to 1911 . . 37 
 Conclusion 38 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Full text of a proposed Bill to provide: 
 
 1. For the original assessment, and the correction of all original 
 assessments, of real and personal property; 
 
 2. To create city boards of assessors; 
 
 3. To create county assessors; 
 
 4. To create county tax appeal juries. 
 
 Contents of sections of Bill 
 
 40-41 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE DETERMINATION OF THE TAXABLE VALUE OF PROPERTY IS A 
 
 PROFESSIONAL AND JUDICIAL, NOT A POLITICAL, FUNCTION. 
 
 Two fundamental purposes must be recognized in order that 
 there may be a profitable discussion of remedies for the imperfec- 
 tions of the administrative features of the tax system of Ohio. 
 
 First: That the determination of the taxable value . of 
 property, real and personal, is a professional and judicial, not a 
 legislative function. 
 
 In the commercial world the valuation of property for business 
 purposes is a daily duty performed with sufficient accuracy to be 
 accepted as a basis for credit when loans are sought, or for pur- 
 chase and sale when ownership of the property involved is to pass 
 from one owner to another. 
 
 It ought not to be difficult to draw from the records, rules and 
 experience involved by the daily necessity of determining values 
 for such purposes, records, rules and experience equally reliable 
 and satisfactory for determining the value of property for taxation. 
 Failure to do this has been caused by the lack of a clear conception 
 of the true requirements of assessment work. 
 
 Second: That the amount of money to be raised by taxation, 
 and the rate of the levy, are questions entirely outside the juris- 
 diction and duties of assessors of real and personal property, 
 boards of review, boards of equalization, or the Tax Commission 
 of Ohio. 
 
 Such assessors, boards and officials have but one duty to 
 perform. This duty is to discover all taxable real and personal 
 property situated within their respective jurisdictions and to list 
 and value the same for taxation at its true value in money. 
 
 The question as to whether or not the valuations made by 
 them will produce a tax list large enough to enable any taxing 
 district to raise a given amount of money by levying a 1% tax, 
 or any other pre-determined rate, is not a proper question for 
 
 5 
 
their consideration or action. The amount of money to be raised 
 or the rate of the tax levy are not factors that can properly be 
 taken into consideration in determining the taxable value of any 
 property at its true value in money. 
 
 EXPERIENCE IS THE FACTOR OF HIGHEST VALUE. 
 
 The fundamental requirement is that all taxable property shall 
 be discovered and listed for taxation at its true value in money. 
 This requirement cannot be properly complied with unless certain 
 necessary conditions are recognized and provided for. 
 
 Records must be kept and continuously corrected for each 
 taxing district, showing the location, description and ownership 
 of all property within such district, supplemented with memoran- 
 dums showing changes in conditions affecting values. 
 
 Rules must be devised for determining the taxable value of 
 all parcels of land, however' divided, owned and used, and the 
 taxable value of all structures and improvements situated thereon. 
 Such rules must be revised from time to time, and exceptions to 
 their application must be noted, as experience may demonstrate 
 to be necessary. 
 
 Persons appointed to perform the duties of assessors should 
 be selected on account of their fitness to do the work required. 
 They should be retained in office as long as they perform their 
 duties in an intelligent and satisfactory manner and no longer. 
 Ordinary mental ability combined with due diligence and a desire 
 to do well whatever is to be done are necessary, but experience 
 counts for more in securing true assessments than any other 
 factor. 
 
 Any business man who gives proper consideration to the 
 proposition will know that office records and rules cannot take the 
 place of intelligent field work, however well they may be devised 
 and kept. Such records and rules are absolutely necessary. 
 When well devised and kept, they are indispensable aids to correct 
 judgement. But no such rules can have universable application 
 or enable the public to dispense with the services of men competent 
 to apply them with the discretion imperatively demanded by 
 dissimilar and changing conditions as they actually exist at any 
 given time. 
 
 6 
 
In the case of buildings, neither the cost of construction nor 
 the age of a building is an infallible index to its value. Rules are 
 necessary to intelligent valuations, but they cannot be substituted 
 for the judgment of an experienced assessor. No system of 
 allowing for depreciation by zones can enable a clerk in an office 
 to value buildings correctly. An assessor who knows the condi- 
 tions, and who knows how to make valuations, must personally 
 inspect the buildings and other structures and judge of the amount 
 that should be allowed for age, obsolecence and changes in sur- 
 rounding conditions. In such work experience is the factor of 
 highest value. 
 
 AMPLE COMPENSATION, CONTINUOUS EMPLOYMENT. 
 
 To become expert in keeping necessary records, making rules 
 and developing ability to form correct conclusions, an assessor 
 must devote himself to his work and develop it into a profession. 
 To enable him to do this, his compensation must be ample and he 
 must be permitted to hold office continuously by right of his 
 service record. 
 
 ' - It is obviously absurd to employ inexperienced men to do 
 special work, which must be done every year, discharge them and 
 again employ other inexperienced men to do the same work for 
 the next fiscal period. 
 
 The people cannot gain the advantages of experience unless 
 they retain assessors in office long enough to enable them to 
 acquire it, and then retain them in service long enough after that 
 to secure the benefit of the experience gained. 
 
 ■ j The selection of assessors by election is a misapplication of the 
 true function of popular government. 
 
 The appointment of assessors for short terms is a violation of 
 the requirements of efficient administration. 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL PURPOSES OF ASSESSING PROPERTY FOR 
 TAXATION. 
 
 The fundamental purposes of assessing property for taxation 
 are: 
 
 First: To supply a basis on which to compute a tax rate 
 necessary to raise the amount of money required. 
 
 7 
 
Second: To determine the portion of the total tax which each 
 taxpayer must pay. 
 
 The total of the tax list and the total amount of money to be 
 raised determine the tax rate. When property is undervalued 
 the total of the tax list is correspondingly decreased and the 
 tax rate is correspondingly increased. This may be done without 
 injustice to any one. 
 
 Injustice results from unequal valuations, not from the tax 
 rate. Unequal valuations are as great a cause of injustice when 
 the standard of valuation is fifty per cent, of full value as it is 
 when the standard is true value in money. 
 
 Small properties are invariably valued at full standard value 
 by inexperienced assessors, but very large properties are not, 
 because an inexperienced assessor is more likely to make a reason- 
 ably close estimate of the value of a small property than he is of 
 a large one. 
 
 Assessments deliberately made by experienced and capable 
 men always equalize values by raising under-valuations to the 
 adopted standard. Whenever and wherever this has been done, 
 it has resulted in decreasing the proportion of the total tax paid 
 by small property owners and increasing the proportion paid by 
 large owners, and this will be the result when this work is properly 
 done in Ohio. For this reason, the demand for experienced 
 expert assessors ; for permanent and continuously corrected 
 records and rules ; and for full valuations that can be demonstrated 
 to be correct by the use of such records and rules, is a demand for 
 the relief of small property owners from over taxation. 
 
 When property is unequally valued the owners of property 
 valued at the highest per cent, of full value are obliged to pay 
 more than their share while the owners of the property valued at 
 the lowest per cent, of full value are favored by being called upon 
 to pay less than their share. 
 
 Valuations made by experienced experts who are capable of 
 determining, and do determine, the true value of all property 
 are the only means by which injustice can be eliminated from the 
 work of determining the proportionate share of the burden of 
 taxation that each taxpayer should pay. 
 
 8 
 
UNDERVALUATION IS THE CAUSE OF NEARLY ALL INJUSTICE 
 IN TAXATION. 
 
 It is obvious that under-valuation is the means universally 
 employed to escape the payment of a just portion of taxation. 
 
 It is equally obvious that the amount saved by one taxpayer 
 by undervaluation must be paid by some other taxpayer. This 
 fact gives every taxpayer as direct and as vital an interest in the 
 assessed value of all property situated within his taxing district 
 as he has in his own. A person should be willing to pay his own 
 fair share of the burden of taxation, but he should protest most 
 vigorously against being compelled to pay taxes for other people. 
 
 The most effective and helpful protest against such injustice 
 that can possibly be made will be made when the conditions 
 under which assessment work is done are reorganized in a way 
 to render undervaluations practically impossible. Such a reorgan- 
 ization is now imperatively demanded. 
 
 Assessors elected without a due regard to their fitness for the 
 work to be done ; the absence of well kept consecutive records and 
 of well tested rules ; short terms of service and the entire lack of 
 efficient supervision, have all conspired to develop and confirm 
 the custom of making undervaluations as a blind method of taking 
 security against injustice on the part of individuals and collectively 
 on the part of representatives of taxing districts to escape a por- 
 tion of county taxation, and of counties to escape a portion of 
 state taxation. 
 
 Under- valuation is the cause of nearly all inequalities between 
 taxpayers, between taxing districts and between counties. Instead 
 of devising an administrative system intelligently designed to 
 correct this evil, and thereby remove the cause of injustice to 
 taxpayers, the General Assembly has continued the method of 
 making valuations, and of correcting the same, that have been in 
 use since the adoption of the present state constitution. These 
 methods confirm and perpetuate the evil of undervaluation, they 
 cannot correct it. 
 
 9 
 
COUNTY BOARDS OF EQUALIZATION CONFIRM, THEY DO NOT 
 CORRECT UNDERVALUATIONS. 
 
 The only way in which the evil of undervaluation can be 
 exterminated is to correct the valuation of every undervalued piece 
 of property by raising it to true value in money. This county 
 boards of equalization do not attempt to do. They seek to 
 eliminate inequalities between taxing districts, not between 
 individuals. They deal with the totals of tax lists, not with 
 individual tax lists. 
 
 County boards of equalization do their work by considering 
 the relative total value of property returned for taxation by the 
 taxing districts within their respective counties. In doing this 
 they will find evidence of attempts to evade the payment of a 
 portion of their fair share of county taxes, on the part of some 
 districts, shown by the low total of their tax list. If they 
 inquire into the cause of this low total, they find that the assessors 
 for such districts considered it a patriotic duty to save their 
 constituents as much as they possibly could by making an under- 
 valued tax list which would help the people of their district to 
 evade the payment of a part of their fair share of county taxes. 
 The question of the injustice of compelling the people of some 
 other district to pay the part of the tax they thus evade does not 
 trouble them. They do not permit their constitutional oath of 
 office, by taking which they solemnly swore that they would 
 assess all property at its true value in money, to interfere with 
 their determination to bring down the amount of the county tax 
 to be paid by their constituents to the lowest possible notch. 
 Long established custom justifies assessors in doing their work in 
 this way. The conviction of an assessor for violating his oath of 
 office is an unheard of and as improbable an event as the convic- 
 tion of a taxpayer for perjury committed by subscribing to a 
 false statement in signing his tax list. 
 
 The problem of the county board of equalization is to equalize 
 the totals of the tax lists of all taxing districts in their 
 county so that each district shall pay its fair share of the county 
 tax. To do this it adopts the simple expedient of determining the 
 average percentage of true value at which the property in each of 
 
 IO 
 
the several districts has been assessed, and then ordering a cor- 
 responding reduction of the total tax list of those districts that 
 have been assessed above, and a corresponding increase of the 
 total tax list of those districts that have been assessed below, 
 this average per cent, of full value. To give practical effect to 
 this order, it is necessary to increase or to decrease the assessed 
 value of every parcel of property situated within a taxing district 
 by the per cent, by which the total tax list of the district has 
 been changed by order of the county board of equalization. 
 
 Clearly, this makes no change whatever in the relative values 
 of individual parcels of property. All such values are decreased 
 or increased by an identical percentage; therefore, no under- 
 valuation or no overvaluation is corrected. But every such 
 incorrect valuation is confirmed and its unfairness increased. 
 
 It is impossible to establish justice between taxpayers by such 
 a system. The only equalization that should be permitted is the 
 work of correcting individual assessments by decreasing them 
 when above, and increasing them when below, the true value in 
 money of the property affected. Such equalization work will 
 eradicate the evil of under- valuation. It will establish justice 
 between taxpayers. It will render county boards of equalization 
 unnecessary. All county boards of equalization should be abol- 
 ished. This statement necessarily includes city boards of equal- 
 ization. 
 
 THE STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION CONFIRMS, IT CANNOT 
 CORRECT UNDERVALUATIONS. 
 
 The state board of equalization is removed one degree further 
 from the problem of the original assessment of individual parcels 
 of property than are county boards of equalization. Therefore, 
 it is by so much less competent to determine the percentage of 
 true value at which property in all taxing districts has been 
 assessed. If inequalities are to be discovered and corrected, the 
 search for them and the work of correction must be done in the 
 district where they occur. The farther those who attempt the 
 work of discovery and correction are removed from the scene of 
 original assessment, the less able are they to discover original 
 errors. The less able are they to correctly correct such errors. 
 
 ii 
 
No state board of equalization has ever attempted to correct 
 errors in the assessments of individual pieces of property. There- 
 fore, no state board of equalization has ever attempted to estab- 
 lish justice between taxpayers. 
 
 The only function of the state board of equalization has been 
 to prevent counties, regarded as taxing districts, from evading 
 the payment of their fair share of the state tax by means of under- 
 valued county tax lists. In performing this duty, its method 
 of procedure, the results of its work, and the method of giving 
 practical effect to its orders, has necessarily been identical with 
 the procedure, results and methods of execution described for 
 the work of county boards of equalization. 
 
 In looking for the cause of undervalued county tax lists, 
 the state board of equalization will find it in the incompetency of 
 assessors, accentuated by a misconception of duty giving a wrong 
 direction to the work to be accomplished, making evasion of a 
 fair share of county and state taxes, by means of undervaluation 
 instead of the establishment of justice between taxpayers, the 
 objective point of their assessment work, supplemented by an 
 entire absence of correct records and rules, and encouraged 
 possibly by an “understanding” obtained from the county auditor 
 that an assessment of — say forty percent of true value would be 
 “about right.” 
 
 The state board of equalization, nor any other administrative 
 body, has never been properly organized and equipped to deal 
 intelligently and effectively with these evils, which have been 
 permitted to exist and to become more firmly established year 
 after year, decade after decade, since the system of county and 
 state boards of equalization was established fifty years ago. 
 
 The abolishment of this system is now imperatively demanded 
 in order that the conditions in which it has culminated may be 
 dealt with in the way an intelligent conception of requirements 
 necessary to promote the general welfare of the state demonstrates 
 must be done. 
 
 To do this, the obstructions to progress embodied in county 
 boards of equalization and in the state board of equalization must 
 be removed. These boards must be abolished. 
 
 12 
 
PART II. 
 
 CHAOTIC CONDITION OF ASSESSMENT WORK. 
 
 The present condition of assessment work is chaotic. No 
 other result can be reasonably expected. A correct assessment of 
 property for taxation has never been made in Ohio. 
 
 However the work of assessing real property was done at the 
 beginning of any decennial period, the experience gained, the 
 records made, the rules adopted, were not available for the same 
 work which had to be done for the next decennial assessment 
 period. Add to this the fact that no adequate machinery has 
 ever been provided for correcting inequalities existing in the 
 original assessments, and the other fact that these inequalities, 
 instead of being removed, were confirmed by the work of county 
 boards and by the state board of equalization, so they could not 
 be corrected during the decennial assessment period of ten years, 
 and it will be seen at once that such conditions rendered it impos- 
 sible for the quadrennial assessors of real property, in office in 
 1910, to make a correct assessment. 
 
 QUADRENNIAL ASSESSOR OF REAL PROPERTY. 
 
 Two thousand, five hundred and eleven (2,511) assessors of 
 real property were elected in November, 1909, to assess all real 
 property in Ohio at its true value in money. They took the oath 
 of office and were commissioned to commence their work on 
 January 15, 1910, their term of service being limited by law to 
 terminate on July 15, 1910. Of course, a vast amount of work was 
 not completed on that date. By means of a doubtful construction 
 of the law, a large number of assessors have been permitted to 
 continue in service for indefinite periods in order to enable them 
 to complete their work. In addition to this, a proposal has been 
 made, and a Bill has been introduced in the General Assembly, 
 to give these assessors a new lease of life in order to enable the 
 Tax Commission of Ohio to call them to its assistance in an attempt 
 to create some tangible result out of the chaotic work that has 
 been done. 
 
 13 
 
CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH QUADRENNIAL ASSESSORS 
 HAVE DONE THEIR WORK. 
 
 To expect two thousand, five hundred and eleven elected, 
 inexperienced, assessors, unaided by well devised and continu- 
 ously corrected records, unguided by thoroughly tested and 
 intelligently adjusted rules, to make a correct assessment of all 
 real property in Ohio within a period of six months betrays a 
 childish confidence in the infallibility of elected officials which the 
 mind of primitive man might be capable of entertaining, but 
 which has no reasonable place in this enlightened age. 
 
 It is well here to recall the state-wide demand made on the 
 auditor of state immediately after election by this army of raw 
 recruits for instructions that would enable them to do their 
 work intelligently and correctly. The attempt to give this instruc- 
 tion, en masse, at a state conference, called by the auditor of 
 state, held in Columbus on the 15th day of December, 1909, at 
 which approximately eighteen hundred (1800) assessors were 
 present, was an object lesson long to be remembered. 
 
 To aid this purpose in the most effective way, the Ohio State 
 Board of Commerce, at its own expense, engaged the services of 
 Mr. A. C. Pleydell and Mr. George J. Craigen to come to Columbus 
 and explain to the assembled assessors how assessment work is 
 done by men who have had fifteen years’ or more continuous 
 experience in the doing of it. These explanations could not be 
 made without reference to certain tables and rules that have 
 been developed by experience and are in daily use by assessors 
 who are making a life’s profession of their work, being permitted 
 to work under conditions that enable them to hold their positions 
 continuously so long as they desire to serve and continue to do 
 satisfactory work. 
 
 Naturally, there was an instant demand for copies of these 
 tables and rules. This demand was supplied by the Ohio State 
 Board of Commerce at its own expense. It arranged with Mr. 
 A. C. Pleydell and Mr. George J. Craigen, and Mr. Lawson Purdy, 
 President of the Department of Taxes and Assessments for New 
 York City, to compile these tables and rules and to publish the 
 
 i4 
 
same in a booklet, a copy of which was supplied to every one of 
 the twenty-five hundred and eleven (2511) elected assessors of 
 real property without charge. 
 
 One other incident occurring at this conference will be clearly 
 remembered by all who attended it. It was the forcible desire 
 on the part of these assessors to respect their oath of office and 
 assess all real property at its true value in money, coupled with 
 an equally clearly expressed fear that if this was done taxpayers 
 would be heavily penalized by such an assessment through being 
 obliged to pay more taxes on the full valued tax list for 1911 
 than they did pay on the undervalued tax list of 1909. 
 
 While the amount of money to be expended, and the tax rate 
 by which it should be raised, cannot be taken into consideration 
 in the work of assessors whose only duty is to discover all property 
 situated within their jurisdictions and to assess it for taxation at 
 its true value in money, these considerations have a determining 
 influence upon public opinion, and legislative enactments designed 
 to build a bridge over which assessment work can pass from the 
 old condition of unregulated and uncorrected undervaluations to 
 the new condition of regulated and intelligently corrected full 
 valuations. 
 
 Meeting this issue, I frankly stated to the members of the 
 conference that a full valued tax list, unsafeguarded by an 
 effective limitation of power of taxation, would produce a calamity 
 of the first magnitude for the people of the state ; that unless such 
 a safeguard was provided by the General Assembly they would, 
 in my opinion, be justified in making assessments at such a per- 
 centage of full value as custom established. This is a case where 
 custom is stronger than the law. An evil custom cannot be 
 broken without the aid of a law that will effectively safeguard the 
 people from unnecessary hardship on account of the change. 
 
 Following this conference, members of the General Assembly 
 for 1910 will remember the strenuous efforts made to secure the 
 enactment of an effective tax-limiting law. They will recall the 
 frequent appeals made by assessors of real property that such a 
 law be enacted promptly so that they might know whether they 
 would be expected to make assessments at full value, or at some 
 customary per cent, of full value. 
 
 15 
 
These are the conditions under which the quadrennial assessors 
 of real property have done their work. Can any intelligent 
 person entertain a reasonable expectation that this work has been 
 correctly done ; that all real property in the State of Ohio has been 
 assessed at its true value in money; that by reason of such assess- 
 ment all inequalities between taxpayers have been eliminated; 
 that justice has been established? 
 
 The wonder is, not that the work of this army of assessors, 
 viewed en masse, appears chaotic, but that, upon inspection in 
 individual detail, so much of it is found to be comparatively well 
 done. 
 
 The duty of the hour is to utilize their work in the best possible 
 way, muster out the quadrennial assessors and proceed to create 
 and establish a tax list for 1911 that can be used as a basis for 
 the computations that must be made to determine the tax rates 
 that must be levied to raise the amount of money each taxing 
 district in the state is to collect on the basis of the 1911 tax list. 
 
 ANNUAL ASSESSORS OF PERSONAL PROPERTY. 
 
 Assessors of personal property elected biennially, are given 
 duty two months in each year of their two-year term, beginning 
 with the first of April and ending with the fourth Monday in May. 
 
 Here is another exhibition of childlike faith in the omniscence 
 of elected officials. Without the experience that can only be 
 acquired by continuous service; without proper records or rules, 
 this army of raw recruits are expected to find and assess at its 
 true value in money, all personal property located within their 
 respective jurisdictions. 
 
 As a matter of practical work, they do not attempt to do any- 
 thing of the kind. They simply distribute blank statements for 
 taxpayers to fill out, and collect them up when they have been 
 signed. No provision is made on these blanks for the entry 
 against the several items of the assessed values determined by the 
 assessor. The only value given is the self-assessed value written 
 in by the taxpayer. 
 
 Is it reasonable to expect that no personal property will be 
 omitted, that no undervaluations will be made, under these 
 conditions ? 
 
 16 
 
ALL PERSONAL PROPERTY IS NEVER DISCOVERED OR FULLY 
 VALUED. 
 
 Statistical reports show all too clearly that personal property 
 is elusive, both as to its existence and value. Human ingenuity 
 in no age, in no civilization, in no community or state, has ever 
 been equal to the task of finding and assessing at full value, or 
 any established percentage of full value, all tangible and all 
 intangible personal property and levying a tax on such valuation 
 uniform with the rate levied on real property, as the constitution 
 of Ohio requires. The attempt to do this has been abandoned by 
 every government excepting the States of this American Union, 
 and many of these States are now diligently searching for prac- 
 ticable substitutes for their personal property tax. 
 
 These facts, however, do not justify the inefficient administra- 
 tion of personal property tax laws which has been so long per- 
 mitted. 
 
 To secure an efficient administration of personal property tax 
 laws, the same methods must be pursued and the same condi- 
 tions must be established as have been indicated as being necessary 
 for the efficient administration of laws for assessing real property. 
 
 Personal property and real property should both be assessed 
 by the same assessors. The conditions of service, the records, 
 rules and methods, the powers and duties in making original 
 assessments and in correcting original assessments, should be 
 identical for both classes of property, so far as practicable. 
 
 The assessors of personal property elected in November 1909 
 will finish their last service on the fourth Monday in May 1911. 
 Their work, in whatever condition it may be, should be promptly 
 transferred to a city board of assessors and a county assessor, so 
 that personal property and real property assessments may be 
 combined and the tax list for 1911 may be completed without 
 delay. With this transfer the race of annual assessors of personal 
 property should cease to exist. The office of annual assessor of 
 personal property should be abolished. 
 
 i7 
 
CITY BOARDS OF REVIEW AND EQUALIZATION. 
 
 A step in the right direction was taken when city boards of 
 review were created, the members of which are appointed to serve 
 for the considerable period of five years. 
 
 The duties of these boards as now constituted are limited to 
 correcting real estate valuations when made necessary from time 
 to time by the addition of new structures and improvements, or 
 by the destruction of existing structures, and by the discovery 
 of omitted property, real or personal. They also have the duty 
 of convening as a quadrennial board of equalization for the 
 correction of quadrennial assessments of real property. 
 
 In the performance of these duties, much good service has been 
 rendered, and records of real value have been acquired. 
 
 The service of these boards in supervising and correcting 
 assessments of personal property has been helpful, but not as 
 effective as it would have been if the assessors doing the work 
 had been appointees of the boards. 
 
 These boards should be re-organized as city boards of assessors, 
 in which form they should be invested with broader powers and 
 permitted to work under conditions well designed to make their 
 work efficient. The office of member of a board of review for 
 municipal corporations should be abolished. 
 
 COUNTY BOARDS OF REVIEW AND EQUALIZATION. 
 
 These boards are made up of county officials who are utterly 
 unable to perform the required duties in addition to the duties 
 properly pertaining to their elective offices. 
 
 The duties of these boards are the same as the duties of corres- 
 ponding city boards, with the exception that they are called upon 
 to equalize the valuations of the several taxing districts within 
 their county, dealing with them in totals, which city boards are 
 not required to do. This duty of district equalization weakens 
 the efficiency of these boards in the performance of the duty of 
 review and the correction of individual appraisements. Such 
 work has never been effectively done by them. As a result, 
 taxpayers in townships and villages suffer more from unequal 
 
 18 
 
valuations than do taxpayers in large cities where boards of review, 
 having no other duties to perform, have kept better pace with 
 the changing values of structures. 
 
 Governor Harmon in his message to the 79th General Assembly, 
 in referring to the manner in which the duties of boards made up 
 of state officials are performed, says: 
 
 “The chief cause of these discreditable and costly con- 
 ditions was the utter inability of boards made up of state 
 officers fully occupied with their proper duties to give the 
 time and attention necessary for this important work.” 
 
 The “discreditable and costly conditions” referred to was the 
 inefficient assessment, or the correction of assessments, of cor- 
 porations made by these state boards. When the work of assess- 
 ment and the correction of assessments is taken out of the hands 
 of county boards of review and equalization, composed of county 
 officials, and placed in the hands of appointed officers whose sole 
 duty it will be to perform the one service required of them, the 
 results will prove the work of county boards composed of county 
 officials to have been as “disastrous and costly” as the work of 
 boards composed of state officials has been. 
 
 All county boards of review and equalization should be abol- 
 ished. 
 
 19 
 
PART III. 
 
 THE PRESENT CONDITION OF ASSESSMENT WORK. 
 
 The quadrennial assessment of real property was commenced 
 January 15, 1910, as required by law, but it was not finished on 
 July 15, 1910, as required by law. The time within which the 
 work should have been completed has been extended for many 
 assessors by county commissioners, county auditors or the Tax 
 Commission of Ohio. 
 
 Delay in completing the work of original assessment has 
 delayed the work of city and county boards of equalization so 
 that the work these boards should have done to correct under- 
 valuations and overvaluations, and to equalize total valuations 
 between taxing districts, has not been done with any approach 
 to thoroughness. 
 
 Added to the errors and undervaluations that are inevitable 
 in the work of inexperienced assessors, are the undervaluations 
 that have resulted from the unsettled condition of the proposed 
 tax-limiting law, and the force of custom in making valuations 
 at some percentage of full value — say forty or fifty per cent. — 
 which many assessors were not able to overcome. 
 
 As a result of these conditions, the assessment of real property 
 has not been correctly done. The work is full of the most glaring 
 inequalities which can easily be found by comparing the assess- 
 ments of the parcels of property in the same taxing district. 
 These inequalities must be corrected or some taxpayer will be 
 required to pay more, while others will be permitted to pay less, 
 than their fair share. Such a result cannot be permitted if the 
 “moral effect of the assurance that fairness and justice will rule 
 with respect to all taxpayers alike is to be an asset in good govern- 
 ment” in Ohio. 
 
 20 
 
THE ASSESSMENT OF PERSONAL PROPERTY IS A FARCE. 
 
 The work of annual assessors of personal property is to com- 
 mence on the first of April and is to be finished on the fourth 
 Monday in May 1911. The preparations made for this work are 
 no different from similar preparations made in the past, therefore, 
 there is no reason to expect that it will be done any more efficiently 
 than it has been done in the past. The degree of efficiency with 
 which this work is done is indicated by the popular expression 
 “the assessment of personal property is a farce.” 
 
 The assessment of personal property is the weak point in our 
 taxation system. Undervaluations of real property, resulting 
 in a high tax rate, have compelled taxpayers to resort to hiding 
 and undervaluing their personal property in order to escape a 
 serious impairment of their incomes and a general handicap on 
 their business which they could not carry. 
 
 The listing and full valuation of all personal property is an 
 important factor in the movement to secure the full valuation of 
 all real property. 
 
 The reasonable expectation is that a full valuation of all real 
 property will increase the total of the tax list so much that (the 
 amount of money to be raised on the 1911 tax list remaining the 
 same as the amount raised on the 1909 tax list) the tax rate 
 will be reduced to a point at which taxpayers can afford to return 
 all their personal property and list it at full value for taxation. 
 
 But these happy conditions do not exist. 
 
 WHAT WILL TAXPAYERS DO? 
 
 Personal property must be listed and assessed now. Tax- 
 payers are to be called upon at once for their personal property 
 statements. What will they do? 
 
 On account of the condition of real property assessment work, 
 taxpayers cannot know by how much the real property section 
 of the duplicate has been or will be increased by the quadrennial 
 assessors of real property, when this work is corrected to eliminate 
 inequalities caused by undervaluations, which can only be done 
 
 21 
 
by raising every individual undervaluation to full value. These 
 corrections will increase the total of the tax list, but who can 
 say how much? 
 
 Another disturbing factor is the possible action of the state 
 board of equalization in ordering horizontal increases or decreases 
 of the totals of township, village, city and county tax lists in a 
 vain attempt to establish justice in taxation. Such attempt will 
 not correct, it will confirm, every inequality existing in real 
 property assessments. It should not be permitted. The law 
 authorizing it should be repealed. 
 
 Another factor in the calculation is the fact that it has not 
 been made certain by act of the General Assembly that no more 
 money shall be raised by any taxing district on the 1911 tax list 
 than was raised by it on the 1909 tax list; therefore, the tax- 
 payer has no assurance that the tax rate for 1911 will be reduced 
 in proportion identical with the increase in the total of the 
 tax list, real and personal property included. If this is not 
 done, taxpayers will be obliged to pay more taxes in 1911 than 
 they paid in 1909. 
 
 With these uncertainties as to the aggregate increase of the tax 
 tax list and a possible increase in the amount of taxes to be 
 paid, what will taxpayers do in returning their personal property 
 for taxation? Will they return all of their personal property 
 and assess themselves at its full value; or will they follow the 
 established custom of many years’ standing and seek to reduce 
 the amount of their tax by omissions and undervaluations? 
 
 Since no assurance can be given that the tax rate for 1911 will 
 not exceed one per cent, it is- reasonable to expect that the personal 
 property section of the tax list will not be increased by self- 
 assessment to the full value of all such property. 
 
 WHAT TAXPAYERS CAN DO. 
 
 There is one way in which taxpayers can safeguard themselves. 
 They can create a public opinion stronger than law, more easily 
 executed, which will cause every man who votes for an increase in 
 taxation over the amount raised in 1909 to know that that vote is his 
 political death warrant. 
 
 22 
 
If taxpayers will perform their clearly-defined public duty on 
 this point, such a public opinion will be created and it will be 
 * effective. Taxpayers have the power to limit the power of taxa- 
 tion in this way. It is their duty to exercise this power. If 
 they do not do it, their failure will be rightly construed by those 
 who vote taxes as a permission to increase taxes , and they will be 
 increased. 
 
 Taxpayers should prove themselves equal to the existing 
 emergency. They should list all of their personal property at full 
 value and depend upon their influence with their own local taxing 
 officials, .and with their representatives in the General Assembly, 
 to make it certain that they shall not pay any more taxes on the 
 1911 tax list than they did pay on the 1909 tax list. 
 
 By following this course the personal property section of the 
 tax list will be increased proportionably with the increase made 
 in the real property section. 
 
 The aggregate of the tax list increased in both sections to 
 approximately the full value of the property assessed, will be 
 sufficiently large to enable two-thirds of the taxing districts in 
 the state to raise as much money in 1911 as they raised in 1909 
 on a tax rate of less than one per cent. 
 
 No taxpayer will be penalized for having listed all of his 
 personal property at full value if he is taxed at a rate less than one 
 per cent. 
 
 A public sentiment strong enough to induce taxpayers to 
 voluntarily list all of their personal property at full value, will be 
 strong enough to safeguard them against an increase in the amount 
 of taxes to be paid. 
 
 ASSESSMENTS CANNOT BE CORRECTED IN TIME EOR 1911 
 TAX LIST. 
 
 The assessed value of all real and personal property is entered 
 on the tax list as of April 1st. 
 
 The law assumes that all corrections of assessments of real 
 property will be made by April first, and requires the self-assess- 
 ment statements of personal property to be made as of this date 
 by personal property tax payers. 
 
 23 
 
The assessment work of personal property assessors is to be 
 finished on the fourth Monday in May. All correction and 
 equalization work should be completed on the first Monday in 
 June. 
 
 The tax list should be completed for each taxing district on 
 the first Monday in July. 
 
 The tax list should be completed for each county on the first 
 Monday in August. 
 
 The tax list for the state should be completed on the first 
 Monday in October. 
 
 The tax assessed will be due and payable, one-half in Decem- 
 ber 1911 and one-half in June 1912. 
 
 This statement of dates clearly demonstrates the fact that 
 the work of correcting under and over assessments, in order that 
 each taxpayer may enjoy the “assurance that fairness and justice 
 will rule with respect to all taxpayers alike,” cannot be accom- 
 plished within the time required. 
 
 More serious than this, however, is the fact that this vitally 
 important work of correcting assessments cannot be done at all 
 by the existing administrative machinery provided by law for 
 this purpose. 
 
 If each taxpayer is to be treated with “fairness and justice” 
 the old inadequate and out-of-date machinery now in use must 
 be discarded and entirely new machinery capable of doing the 
 required work must be installed in its place. 
 
 2 4 
 
PART IV. 
 
 THE OLD MACHINERY TO BE DISCARDED. 
 
 1. The office of quadrennial assessor of real property should 
 be abolished. 
 
 2. The office of annual assessor of personal property should 
 be abolished; 
 
 3. All boards of annual review and quadrennial equalization 
 for municipal corporations should be abolished; 
 
 4. All county boards of annual review and quadrennial 
 equalization should be abolished; 
 
 5. The state board of equalization should be abolished; 
 
 6. The custom of electing assessors and of giving assessors 
 short terms of service should be abandoned. 
 
 THE NEW MACHINERY TO BE INSTALLED. 
 
 1. A board of assessors for each city, of three members, is to 
 be created by transfering to its membership the present members 
 of all boards of annual review and quadrennial equalization for 
 municipal corporations, all vacancies whenever occurring to be 
 filled by the Tax Commission of Ohio to serve for six years, 
 excepting when made for unexpired terms; 
 
 2. A county assessor for each county is to be appointed by 
 the Tax Commission of Ohio to serve for six years; 
 
 3. To utilize the experience gained by members of the exist- 
 ing city boards of review, the members of such boards now in 
 office are to become members of the new city board of assessors, 
 by transfer, and their terms of service are to be extended so that 
 those expiring in 1911 will expire on the second Monday in January 
 1912; those expiring in 1912 will expire in 1914, and those expiring 
 in 1913 will expire in 1916. On and after 1916 all terms are to 
 be for six years. All appointments made by the Tax Commission 
 of Ohio are to be made from a list of five eligible persons submit- 
 ted by the board of civil service commissioners of the city in which 
 the vacancy occurs. 
 
 25 
 
4. All original appointments of county assessors, and all 
 appointments to fill vacancies, made by the Tax Commission of 
 Ohio, are to be made from a list of five eligible persons submitted 
 by the county auditor of the county for which the appointment is 
 made. Original appointments are to be for a term of six years 
 from the second Monday in January 1912, and afterwards for 
 six years; 
 
 5. The transfer of members of city boards of review and 
 equalization, to be members of city boards of assessors, and all 
 original appointments of county assessors are to be made on or 
 before the first Monday in June 1911; 
 
 6. All powers and duties of city boards of assessors and of 
 county assessors are to be identical. They are to exercise all the 
 powers and discharge all of the duties heretofore imposed and 
 required from all assessors and boards displaced by them. 
 
 7. City boards of assessors are to have jurisdiction over all 
 assessment work within their respective cities, and county 
 assessors are to have jurisdiction over all assessment work 
 within their respective counties outside of cities. 
 
 8. Boards of city assessors, and county assessors, are to have 
 power to appoint and fix the compensation of their secretaries, 
 experts, clerks, accountants, stenographers and other assistants, 
 subject to the approval of the county commissioners of their 
 respective counties. In case county commissioners neglect or 
 refuse to give the necessary authority for making such appoint- 
 ments, or for the proper compensation of the persons appointed, 
 the assessors may apply to the Tax Commission for such authority 
 and said Commission is to be given power to grant the request. 
 
 9. The work of city boards of assessors and of county assess- 
 ors is to be placed under the supervision of the Tax Commission 
 of Ohio. All instructions, books, forms and rules issued by said 
 Commission to such assessors are to be identical and uniform in 
 every respect and are to be designed to secure a uniform and 
 efficient administration of all tax laws. 
 
 10. Efficient administration being the result sought in dis- 
 placing old and installing new assessment machinery, city boards 
 of assessors and county assessors will serve the purpose in view 
 
 26 
 
most effectively by appointing as their assistants former assessors 
 of real and personal property who have made good service records 
 within their respective jurisdictions. In this way, and by pro- 
 viding that members of the existing city boards of review shall 
 be members of city boards of assessors, all serviceable working 
 parts of the old machinery will be utilized in the new machinery 
 and the people will gain the advantages that can only be derived 
 from experience. Assessors ppointed originally on the basis of 
 experience and ability, guaranteed terms of service sufficiently 
 long to enable them to perfect their records and rules and to 
 become experts in their profession, can be reasonably expected 
 to make an enormous gain in the accuracy and efficiency of 
 assessment work. 
 
 COUNTY TAX APPEAL JURIES. 
 
 11. To give every taxpayer a tangible and reliable “assurance 
 that fairness and justice will rule with respect to all taxpayers 
 alike to guarantee that justice will be established between 
 taxpayers, a county tax appeal jury of three members is to be 
 appointed for each county by the Judges of the common please 
 court. The duty of the juries shall be to hear and render a decision 
 upon every protest filed with them against any original assessment 
 or any correction of an original assessment of real or personal 
 property made by a quadrennial assessor of real property, by an 
 annual assessor of personal property, by a city board of assessors, 
 or by a county assessor. 
 
 taxpayer’s right oe protest. 
 
 12. Further to safeguard taxpayers and to make the estab- 
 lishment of justice still more certain, every taxpayer who has 
 filed his statement of taxable property with an annual assessor of 
 personal property, properly filled out and attested, on or before 
 the fourth Monday in May 1911, and annually thereafter, is to be 
 given the right to protest against any assessment of his real or 
 personal property made by a quadrennial assessor of real property 
 in 1910 or 1911, or by an annual assessor of personal property 
 made in 1911, or thereafter made by a board of city assessors or 
 by a county assessor, and is to be given the right to protest against 
 
any correction of such assessment whenever' of by whomever" 
 made. 
 
 Every such protest is to be filed with the assessor having 
 jurisdiction over the assessment protested against on or before 
 the first Monday in June in any year. 
 
 Protests cannot be filed by any taxpayer who has failed to file 
 his statement of taxable property, properly filled out and attested, 
 with the assessor for the taxing district within which his property 
 is taxable, on or before the fourth Monday in May in any year, 
 and no protest can be filed after the first Monday in June in any 
 year. 
 
 Every assessor must record his decision on every protest filed 
 with him on or before the first Monday in July each year, and must 
 immediately file with the county tax appeal jury every protest 
 on which his decision is not accepted by the protesting taxpayer. 
 
 taxpayer’s right of appeal. 
 
 1. Each county tax appeal jury is to be required to hear and 
 render a decision upon every protest filed with them. For this 
 purpose they are to hold session^ in any township, village or city 
 in which the property the assessment of which is protested against 
 is situated. 
 
 2. In case a taxpayer is dissatisfied with the decision of the 
 county tax appeal jury, he is to be given the right to appeal from 
 the decision of the jury to the Tax Commission of Ohio. 
 
 3. In case a taxpayer is dissatisfied with the decision of the 
 Tax Commission of Ohio, he is to be given the right to appeal 
 from the decision of the Commission to the common pleas court 
 having jurisdiction over the taxing district in which the property 
 is situated the assessment of which is protested against. The 
 decision of the common pleas court is to be final. 
 
 ASSESSORS TO DEFEND ASSESSMENT. 
 
 It is to be the duty of every assessor to defend any assessment 
 over which he has jurisdiction against the protest of any taxpayer. 
 On behalf of such defense, the assessor is to have the same rights 
 of appeal as the taxpayer. 
 
 28 
 
TAXES TO BE PAID WHEN DUE. REFUND OF EXCESS TAXES. 
 
 In case a tax becomes due before a decision that is accepted 
 by a taxpayer as satisfactory is rendered on a protest filed by him, 
 he is to pay the full amount of the tax as assessed. 
 
 In case the final decision is in favor of the taxpayer, the author- 
 ity rendering the decision is to give him an order on the auditor 
 of the county in which the tax was paid for a refund of the full 
 amount of the excess tax, with interest at the rate of six per cent, 
 from the date of the tax payment to the date of the refund pay- 
 ment, together with an allowance, to be determined by the author- 
 ity rendering the decision, to cover his expense incurred in prose- 
 cuting his claim. 
 
 NO ABATEMENT OR REFUND OF TAXES TO BE ALLOWED 
 EXCEPT BY DECISIONS ON PROTESTS. 
 
 Favoritism is to be eliminated and public treasuries are to be 
 safeguarded by prohibiting the granting of appeals for the abate- 
 ment or refund of a tax, by whomever or to whomever made, 
 excepting "as ordered by a decision on a protest filed and heard as 
 provided. 
 
 RESULTS EXPECTED. 
 
 The operation of this new system will withdraw the assessment 
 of property for taxation from the realm of uncertainty, where the 
 work has been done by guess-work and fiat orders, to the realm 
 of an exact, clear-cut, well-defined business procedure where 
 each taxpayer can know that the taxable value of his property 
 will be determined with as much accuracy as it would be if it was 
 to be appraised for a loan, or for sale, and where, in case he is not 
 satisfied with the valuation, he will have a right of appeal on which 
 he is certain to secure justice. 
 
 Assessment work, and the work of correcting assessments, done 
 continuously by assessors who become experts by the education 
 of experience gained by the years of service, aided by well kept and 
 continuously corrected records and rules and supervised by a 
 competent Tax Commission, will inevitably develop a degree of 
 efficiency that has been unknown in the past. 
 
 29 
 
I feel justified in making an adaptation on this subject of 
 the words of commendation used by Governor Harmon in his 
 message to the 79th General Assembly, referring to the work of 
 the Tax Commission of Ohio, by saying: 
 
 It is plain that the new system proposed for the administration 
 of the tax assessment laws of the state will soon justify its creation. 
 The only regret of the people will be that such a system was not 
 created sooner. I am firmly convinced that the cost of this system, 
 when well established and properly provided for, will prove to 
 be the most productive public investment the people of this state 
 have ever made. 
 
 I feel no hesitancy in adding that, if the six month’s work of 
 an inexperienced and imperfectly organized state tax commission 
 can merit such commendation, the first year’s work of the city 
 boards of assessors, of the county assessors, and of the county 
 tax appeal juries, when created and appointed as I propose, will 
 command even greater praise. Upon this proposition the people 
 of the state cannot be losers. They will be enormous gainers. 
 
 30 
 
PART V. 
 
 MAKING THE 1911 TAX LIST. 
 
 The chaotic condition of the assessment work done by the 
 quadrennial assessors of real property and the inefficient work 
 that is sure to be done by the annual assessors of personal property 
 calls for a painstaking and careful investigation and correction 
 of the assessment of every individual parcel of property. 
 
 The necessity for such work is made doubly imperative by the 
 fact that it has never been done in the past and that it must be 
 done now if future assessments are to give an “assurance that 
 fairness and justice will rule with respect to all taxpayers alike .’ * 
 
 It is certain that no human agency, however devised and 
 equipped, can be equal to the task of properly making and com- 
 pleting all corrections by the time the 1911 tax list must be 
 completed for the use of the taxing authorities of all taxing districts. 
 And yet, every undervalued and every over-valued assessment of 
 real and personal property must be corrected so as to assess the 
 property involved at its true value if all inequalities are to be 
 eliminated, if justice is to be established. 
 
 The 1911 tax list must be ready to be used as a basis for 
 computing the tax rate for 1911 on or before July 1, 1911. This 
 must be done in order that the work of computing and extending 
 the amount of tax each taxpayer is to pay may be finished in time 
 for the collection of the first half of the tax due in December 1911. 
 
 THE COMPLETION OE THE 1911 TAX LIST MUST BE FORCED. 
 
 TAXPAYERS’ RIGHTS MUST BE SAFE-GUARDED. 
 
 Time will not wait on the convenience of men. The comple- 
 tion of the 1911 tax list must be forced. The only thing that 
 can now be done to bring order out of chaos is to provide a way 
 in which the 1911 tax list can be completed, on the basis of an 
 estimated full value of the property assessed, and the rights of 
 taxpayers can be properly safeguarded. This can be done by 
 adopting the proposed system of city boards of assessors, county 
 assessors and county tax appeal juries. 
 
 31 
 
When the city boards of assessors, and the county assessors 
 have entered upon their duties, the Tax Commission of Ohio 
 can instruct them to complete the 1911 tax list for each of the 
 several taxing districts within their respective jurisdictions, by 
 increasing all assessments by the percentage it is estimated 
 the total of assessments is below the total full value of all 
 property assessed. In doing this, the benefit of the doubt should 
 be given in favor of full valuation. 
 
 If the estimated percentage is too high, the necessary correc- 
 tions can be made later on through decisions on the protests that 
 will be filed. If they are too low, however, the under-valuations 
 as made will not be protested against, and, therefore, no correc- 
 tions of such valuations can be made on the 1911 tax list. It 
 is an axiom in assessment work that an assessment against which 
 no protest is made is an under- valuation. 
 
 The valuations of personal property can be increased in the 
 same way by the same or a different percentage as in the judgment 
 of the assessors may be thought necessary. 
 
 PROTESTS AND CORRECTIONS. 
 
 On the first Monday in June, notice is to be given by advertise- 
 ment to all taxpayers that the work of original assessment has 
 been completed and that any taxpayer applying for the same, 
 enclosing a two-cent stamp with his application, will be furnished 
 with a statement showing the taxable values of the real and per- 
 sonal property listed in his name. 
 
 Upon the receipt of this statement, the taxpayer will have the 
 right, if he desires to do so, to file a protest against the assessed 
 valuation of his property. This protest must show the amount 
 of the valuation and the amount of the claimed over- valuation. 
 Protests against under- valuation are not expected. 
 
 All protests, to be valid, must be filed with the assessor on or 
 before the first Monday in June. 
 
 It is certain that assessors will not be able to correct all assess- 
 ments protested against before the first Monday in July, the date 
 on which the 1911 tax list must be completed; nor is it probable 
 that every correction he would make, if he had ample time in 
 
 32 
 
which to consider each protest on its merits, would be satisfactory 
 to the protesting taxpayer. All the assessor can do, when the first 
 Monday in July arrives, will be to certify all unsatisfied protests 
 to the county tax appeal jury and enter in each case on the tax 
 tax list a notice of protest and the amount of over-valuation 
 claimed. 
 
 NO INJUSTICE TO TAXPAYERS WILL RESULT FROM THE FORCING OF 
 
 THE TAX LIST. 
 
 When done and safeguarded as proposed, no injustice will 
 result from the forcing of the tax list as proposed. 
 
 Taxpayers will have a means of securing such reductions in the 
 valuations of their property as they may claim to be just, provided 
 they can prove the justness of their claim, so that as a final result 
 they will pay no more tax than they should pay. 
 
 As compensation for their trouble in making and prosecuting 
 their protest, they will gain four substantial advantages: 
 
 1. The system proposed will raise under- valued property to 
 full value. Therefore, owners of property that was originally 
 assessed at a higher proportionate value than the under-valued 
 property will have the amount of their tax reduced by the amount 
 by which it would have been increased if the under-valuation 
 had been allowed to stand. 
 
 2. Owners of property originally assessed at full value, or 
 more than full value, which valuation will also be raised by the 
 addition of the percentage of increase used to bring under- valued 
 property up to full value, will be able to secure a decision that will 
 relieve them from paying a tax on more than full value; or, if the 
 tax is paid, will secure for them a refund of the full amount of the 
 excess tax, with interest, and an allowance to cover expenses 
 incurred in prosecuting their claim, so that as a final result, they 
 will pay no more tax than they should pay on the full value of 
 their property. 
 
 3. It is to be provided that the value of real property when 
 fixed by a county tax appeal jury, the Tax Commission of Ohio or 
 a common pleas court, by a decision on a taxpayer’s protest, shall 
 stand unchanged except by corrections on account of the addition 
 
 33 
 
of new structures or the destruction of old ones, until the end of 
 the quadrennial period of 1914. 
 
 4. By forcing the tax list as proposed, a greater gain can 
 be made in the direction of securing a full valued tax list, 
 making a low tax rate possible, and in establishing justice, than 
 can possibly be accomplished in any other way. It is the only 
 way in which customs that have become deeply rooted through years 
 of observance can be overcome, and the evil of tax evasion by 
 means of under-valuation can be eradicated from our system of 
 taxation. 
 
 To complete the work of correcting tax assessments, it is to be 
 provided that all assessments, not fixed by a decision on a protest 
 rendered as proposed, shall be corrected by the assessors to become 
 effective for the 1912 tax list. This will permit the work of 
 eliminating all inequalities, of establishing justice, to proceed under 
 conditions that will make its final accomplishment certain. The 
 completion of this work should be most strenuously desired by 
 every taxpayer. 
 
 BY FORCING THE TAX LIST AS PROPOSED, A GREAT GAIN WILL BE 
 MADE FOR EVERY TAXING DISTRICT. 
 
 By forcing the tax list as proposed, the work can be brought 
 to a useable stage of completion so that the taxing authorities 
 of every taxing district can have a tax list to use as a basis on 
 which to compute the tax rate for 1911. In this way the work 
 of preparing for and collecting taxes on the 1911 tax list can 
 proceed without hindrance from any cause. 
 
 The tax list as proposed will show the total valuation of all 
 property assessed and the total amount of excess value claimed 
 by recorded protests. It is certain that the total of the tax list, 
 less the amount of excess valuation claimed, if forced as proposed, 
 will be larger than it will be if made up in any other way than the 
 one proposed. 
 
 By using the total of the tax list, less the amount of excess 
 valuation claimed, as a basis for computing the tax rate, that rate 
 will be higher than it will be if the total, including the excess 
 valuation claimed, is used as a basis for computing the rate. The 
 tax will be assessed upon the highest valuation in either case. 
 
 34 
 
This method of procedure will safeguard the revenues from 
 depletion on account of refunds of excess taxes ordered by decisions 
 on protests. 
 
 If every claim on account of over valuation should be allowed 
 in full — which is impossible — the net amount of revenue will be 
 the same as the tax rate was estimated to produce, because the 
 rate was computed on the total of the tax list less the total of 
 all claims of over valuation. On the other hand, the revenue will 
 be increased by the proceeds of the tax levied on all claimed over 
 valuations which are not allowed by the decisions rendered. 
 
 In the way proposed, the greatest possible total for the tax 
 list and the lowest practicable tax rate for 1911 can be established 
 and the work of correcting assessments will be put into the best 
 possible shape to be continued in preparing the 1912 tax list. 
 
 AN ENORMOUS NUMBER OF PROTESTS EXPECTED. 
 
 Under the conditions proposed, the percentage of increase 
 used to raise under-valued property to full value should be large 
 enough to raise the valuation of all property valued at the lowest 
 percentage of full value to full value. By doing this it is inevitable 
 that the assessed value of all property, excepting that originally 
 assessed at the lowest percentage of full value, will be increased 
 above full value and that such increase will call forth an enormous 
 number of protests. 
 
 As compensation for the work involved in hearing and render- 
 ing a decision on each protest, the revenue of each taxing district 
 will be increased by the proceeds of the tax levied upon the 
 increased value added, by means of the percentage, to every 
 parcel of property the assessed value of which is not protested 
 against. The tax levied on the total amount of the increased 
 valuation made by reason of the added percentage, less the total 
 amount refunded on over- valuation claimed by protests, will show 
 the amount of revenue gained by the use of this method of forcing 
 the tax list. It will also show the amount of tax paid by the 
 owners of under-valued property which would otherwise have been 
 paid by other taxpayers through the increased tax rate that it 
 would have been necessary to fix on the total of an under-valued 
 tax list. 
 
 35 
 
To indicate what this means for the general welfare, and for 
 small home owners in particular, reference will be made to one 
 record of an experience. 
 
 On January 11, 1909, Mr. Frank B. Schutz, the very able 
 Tax Commissioner of the City of Milwaukee, called a meeting 
 of the city board of assessors to devise ways and means to obtain 
 greater uniformity in making assessments. Mr. Schutz at once 
 began agitation for a 100% assessment as a means of decreasing 
 the possibilities of discriminations in making assessments. As a 
 result, in 1910 the increase in the assessed value of one corporation 
 alone amounted to more than the increase of assessment for the 
 entire Twelfth Ward — the ward containing the largest percentage 
 of small homes. The total increase for the Second and Fourth 
 Wards alone — the business wards — was $2,390,120, which is more 
 than half of the total increase of $4,724,730 for the entire city, 
 including the homes of all working men and other small home 
 owners. 
 
 This sustains the statement previously made that small home 
 owners have much to gain and nothing to lose by insisting upon 
 full valuations. 
 
 THE BURDEN OF THE WORK MUST FALL ON 1911. 
 
 If a full valued tax list is to result from the quadrennial 
 assessment work of 1910, if the personal property section of the 
 tax list is to be increased in 1911 by more complete returns 
 and fuller valuations induced by the low tax rate made possible 
 by a full valuation, if the general welfare of the state is to be 
 promoted by a full valued tax list and a low tax rate during 
 all the years of the quadrennial period until 1914, the heaviest 
 part of the burden of work required to accomplish these desirable 
 results must fall on the year 1911. If this work is not properly 
 done now it will not be properly done at any time during this 
 quadrennial period. 
 
 If the work of equalization is done this year by a state board, 
 as it has been done every decade since the adoption of the present 
 state constitution, all the disadvantages of a horizontal increase 
 or decrease will be imposed upon the people, and all opportunity 
 to eliminate inequalities and to establish justice will be lost. 
 
 36 
 
Ten years ago valuations were equalized (?) by the state board 
 of equalization using the horizontal method of increasing and 
 decreasing valuations. That equalization did not correct a single 
 case of inequality between taxpayers. It confirmed and fixed 
 every such inequality for ten years. 
 
 If the General Assembly permits the Tax Commission of 
 Ohio to make a horizontal equalization as was done in 1901, 
 every case of inequality between taxpayers covered by the 1911 
 tax list, so forced and fixed, will remain unchanged during the 
 quadrennial period and until the 1915 tax list is completed. 
 This may be the easy way, but it surely is not the best way. 
 It will not establish justice. It will not permit an attempt to 
 establish justice to be made for four years. 
 
 THE ADVANTAGES AND THE PRESTIGE OF A FULL VALUED TAX LIST 
 BELONG TO 1911. 
 
 If justice is worth having at any time, it is worth having now. 
 If it is to be had now, the cost of obtaining it must be paid now. 
 That cost will be more than made good by the increase in revenue 
 derived from taxes paid by owners of under-valued property on 
 the increased valuation placed upon their property in the manner 
 proposed. 
 
 Ample safeguards having been provided to protect taxpayers 
 from liability to pay taxes on over- valuations, opposition to the 
 proposed method of forcing the 1911 tax list can only come 
 from those who wish to continue to profit by under- valuations, 
 as past experience has taught them they can do. They are the 
 ones who have opposed every effort to improve the taxation 
 system of Ohio that has been made in the past. They are the 
 ones who are opposing such efforts now. 
 
 Does any one suppose that tax evasion by means of under- 
 valuations would exist for a single year if no one was profiting by 
 it? Who can profit by it except those whose property is under- 
 valued ? 
 
 37 
 
The work of stamping out the evil of under- valuation, resulting 
 from the cupidity of some, the ignorance, inexperience or corrup- 
 tion of others, should be done now to complete the work of securing 
 a full- valued tax list for 1911, begun by the enactment of the 
 quadrennial assessment law of 1909. 
 
 A part of the cost of this work has already been paid in paying 
 the cost of the work done by the quadrennial assessors of real 
 property. If advantages are to be gained from establishing a 
 full-valued tax list and a correspondingly low tax rate, all such 
 advantages should be gained for the year 1911 so that the people 
 may profit by them during the entire quadrennial period. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The propositions herein made and advocated are in line with 
 the best work being done throughout the United States to improve 
 the administration of tax laws. When enacted into law and prop- 
 erly administered, they will place Ohio in the front rank of pro- 
 gressive states having improved taxation systems. In some 
 respects they will make Ohio a leader of states on this subject. 
 
 This is the first time an opportunity has been given to propose 
 or enact the suggested changes in our taxation system. Never 
 before has there been a State Tax Commission that could perform 
 the duties of appointment and supervision necessary to carry 
 the new system to be created into practical operation. 
 
 The opportunity is here. The need of the system proposed 
 is urgent. The legislation necessary to its adoption cannot be 
 enacted too quickly. 
 
 I urge every citizen of the State, and more especially every 
 member of the General Assembly and every officer of state, at 
 once to unite their influence and efforts, with all others of like 
 mind, for the quick accomplishment of the purpose in view, the 
 realization of the advantage of the “moral effect of the assurance 
 that fairness and justice will rule with respect to all taxpayers 
 alike as an asset in good government whose value cannot be 
 expressed in figures,” so graphically set forth and so eloquently 
 pleaded for by Governor Harmon in his message to the 79th 
 General Assembly. 
 
 38 
 
More than this, I respectfully invite and urge every person 
 who can do so to make any suggestions he can for the improve- 
 ment of the measure that must be enacted into law in order to 
 adopt and carry the system proposed into practical effect. 
 
 The draft of a bill published herewith does not completely 
 cover all of the points discussed in this argument, nor is it 
 presumed that it presents the measure in final legal form. 
 Valuable assistance in these respects is expected from a serious 
 discussion of the propositions herein advanced and advocated. 
 
 To the people of Ohio I herein give my best thought and 
 express my most earnest desire for the improvement of their 
 taxation system; for the establishment of justice between all 
 taxpayers alike. 
 
 39 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 A BILL 
 
 To provide for original assessments of real and personal property, and for 
 the correction of all original assessments of such property by whom- 
 ever made, and to amend or repeal sections of the General Code as 
 herein provided. 
 
 section CONTENTS OF SECTIONS. 
 
 NO. PAGE 
 
 1. City boards of assessors; county assessors; county tax appeal jury. . 42 
 
 2. City boards of assessors; number of members; by whom appointed; 
 
 term of service 42 
 
 3. Rules for appointing members of city boards of assessors; for fixing 
 
 terms of service for original appointments, and for filling 
 vacancies 42 
 
 4. City boards of assessors., compensation 43 
 
 5. Sessions of city boards of assessors 43 
 
 6. County assessors; how appointed; vacancies, how filled 43 
 
 7. County assessors; term of service; vacancies filled for unexpired 
 
 term 43 
 
 8. County assessors, compensation 44 
 
 9. County assessors, employment 44 
 
 10. Bond and oath of office 44 
 
 11. Offices and boards abolished, powers and duties transferred 44 
 
 12. Offices; office furniture and supplies; office hours 45 
 
 13. Appointment, compensation and duties of Secretary and other 
 
 assistants 45 
 
 14. Traveling expenses 45 
 
 15. Payment of salaries of assessors, their secretary and other assist- 
 
 ants 46 
 
 16. Appointment and employment of a secretary and other assistants 
 
 may be authorized by the Tax Commission of Ohio 46 
 
 17. Organization of city boards of assessors; rules, regulations and 
 
 hearings for city boards of assessors and county assessors 47 
 
 18. Conferences with members of city boards of assessors and county 
 
 assessors 47 
 
 19. Power to administer oaths, certify to official acts, compel production 
 
 of books, accounts, papers, records, documents and testimony. . 47 
 
 20. Jurisdiction of city boards of assessors; powers and duties, and 
 
 instructions issued by the Tax Commission of Ohio shall be 
 identical 47 
 
 40 
 
section CONTENTS OF SECTIONS. 
 
 NO. PAGE 
 
 21. County auditors shall furnish city boards of assessors, and county 
 
 assessors, with original assessment lists of real and personal 
 property; returns made by corporations to county auditors and 
 records of assessments and corrections made by county auditors 
 for the years 1910 and 1911 48 
 
 22. County auditors to furnish blank statements for listing personal 
 
 property 48 
 
 23. Correction of assessments of real and personal property made in 1910 
 
 and 1911 49 
 
 24. Assessment and the correction of assessments of all real and personal 
 
 property during the year 1912 and thereafter 49 
 
 25. City boards of assessors and county assessors may decrease or 
 
 increase the aggregate value of real and personal property. ... 50 
 
 26. Examination of property owners 50 
 
 27. Date of tax list; date for filing; date for completing valuations 
 
 date for completing district tax list ; date for completing 
 county tax list; date for certifying county tax list to county 
 treasurer; dates taxes become due 51 
 
 28. Notice to taxpayers; hearings 51 
 
 29. Character of statement to be furnished taxpayers 52 
 
 30. City boards of assessors and county assessors shall keep public rec- 
 
 ord of all changes in valuation made by tax appeal juries, the 
 Tax Commission of Ohio and court of common pleas 52 
 
 31. Taxpayer’s right of protest; no protest can be filed unless list has 
 
 been filed; notice of protest entered on tax list 52 
 
 32. Appointment of county tax appeal jury 53 
 
 33. County tax appeal jury; compensation, appointment of chief clerk 
 
 and other employes; county commissioners provide office; may 
 hold sessions in any township, village or city; court to order 
 attendance of witnesses; discharge jury when work is finished; 
 records to be deposited with county auditor 53 
 
 34. Appeal from decision of county tax appeal jury to the Tax Commis- 
 
 sion of Ohio 54 
 
 35. Appeal from decision of the Tax Commission of Ohio to the common 
 
 pleas court; decision of that court to be final 54 
 
 36. Payment of tax; refund of excess 54 
 
 37. City boards of assessors and county assessors shall defend assess- 
 
 ments against protests 55 
 
 38. Valuations determined after hearing on protests shall stand for 
 
 quadrennial period. Values not so determined may be corrected 
 and protests may be filed against correction; heard and deter- 
 mined as protests against original assessments 55 
 
 39. Repealing section 55 
 
 4i 
 
79th General Assembly, 
 
 No.- 
 
 Regular Session, 1911 
 
 Mr. 
 
 A BILL 
 
 To provide for original assessments of real and personal property, and for 
 the correction of all original assessments of such property by whom- 
 ever made, and to amend or repeal sections of the General Code as 
 herein provided. 
 
 Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio'. 
 
 Section 1. For the purpose of assessing and correcting 
 assessments of all real and personal property there is hereby 
 created a city board of assessors for each city, and a county 
 assessor for each county, and a county tax appeal jury for each 
 county, with powers and duties as herein provided. 
 
 Sec. 2. All city boards of assessors shall consist of three 
 members who shall be appointed by the Tax Commission of Ohio 
 to serve for a term of six years, except as herein provided. 
 
 Sec. 3. All members of a board of review for a municipal 
 corporation in office on the day when this Bill becomes law whose 
 term of service expires within the year 1911 shall serve until 
 the second Monday in January, 1912; all members of such boards 
 whose term of service expires within the year 1912 shall serve 
 until the second Monday in January, 1914; all members of such 
 boards whose term of service expires with the year 1913, or at 
 any time thereafter, shall serve until the second Monday in Jan- 
 uary, 1916, as members of the city board of assessors. 
 
 In appointing members of city boards of assessors, the Tax 
 Commission of Ohio shall be governed by the following rules : 
 
 First: All appointments made to fill a vacancy caused by 
 the expiration of a term of service in the years 1912, 1914 and 
 1916 and thereafter, shall be made for a term of six years. 
 
 42 
 
Second: All appointments made to fill vacancies however 
 caused, other than by an expiration of a term of service, shall be 
 filled for the unexpired term. 
 
 Third: All appointments to fill vacancies, however caused, 
 shall be made from a list of five eligible persons submitted by the 
 City Civil Service Commissioners of the City in which the vacancy 
 in the city board of assessors occurs. 
 
 Sec. 4. The Compensation pf all members of city boards of 
 assessors shall be fixed by the Tax Commission of Ohio, provided 
 that the compensation of members of a board of review for a 
 municipal corporation, when serving as members of a city board 
 of assessors shall be the same as they received as members 
 of a board of review of a municipal corporation, and that 
 the compensation of all members of city boards of assessors 
 appointed to fill vacancies, however caused, shall be the same as 
 the compensation of the member whose place in the board is so 
 filled, until changed by order of the Tax Commission of Ohio, but 
 in no case shall the compensation of any member of a city board 
 of assessors be less than three dollars and fifty cents per day for 
 each day the board is in session. 
 
 Sec. 5. The date on which the city board of assessors for 
 each city shall begin its regular session and the number of days it 
 shall remain in regular session in each year shall be fixed by the 
 Tax Commission of Ohio, and said Commission may require any 
 city board of assessors to convene and remain in special session 
 on such dates and for such number of days as it may direct. 
 
 Sec. 6. The Tax Commission of Ohio shall appoint a county 
 assessor for each county on or before the first Monday in June 
 1911, from a list of five eligible persons submitted by the county 
 auditor, and shall fill all vacancies in the office of county assessor 
 by appointment from a list of five eligible persons submitted by 
 the county auditor of the county in which such vacancy may 
 occur. 
 
 Sec. 7. The term of service for all county assessors appointed 
 in 1911 shall begin with the date of their appointment and shall 
 end on the second Monday in January 1916, and thereafter the 
 term of all county assessors shall be six years, beginning on the 
 
 43 
 
second Monday in January in the year in which they are appointed. 
 All vacancies, however caused, shall be filled for the unexpired 
 term. 
 
 Sec. 8. The compensation of all county assessors shall be 
 fixed annually for each assessor by the Tax Commission of Ohio, 
 provided, that such compensation shall not in any case be less than 
 one hundred dollars per month. 
 
 Sec. 9. Each county assessor shall render active service 
 for the number of months in each year determined by the Tax 
 Commission of Ohio and shall devote his entire time to the dis- 
 charge of the duties of his office during such months. 
 
 Sec. 10. Each member of a city board of assessors and each 
 county assessor shall, before entering upon the duties of his office, 
 give a bond in a sum to be fixed by the Tax Commission of Ohio, 
 payable to the State of Ohio, with surety to the satisfaction of 
 said Commission, prepared and approved as to form by the State’s 
 Attorney-General, which bond, with the oath of office endorsed 
 thereon properly executed and acknowledged, shall be deposited 
 for safe keeping with said Commission. 
 
 Sec. 11. The offices of annual assessor of personal property 
 as provided in Section 3349 ; and of quadrennial assessor of real 
 property as provided in Section 3365; all annual county boards 
 for the equalization of real and personal property as provided in 
 Section 5580; all quadrennial county boards of equalization of 
 real property as provided in Section 5594; all quadrennial county 
 boards for the equalization of real property convened as boards 
 of revision as provided in Sections 5599, 5600 and 5601 ; all boards 
 of review for municipal corporations as provided in Section 5618, 
 and all boards of review for municipal corporations convened as 
 boards of equalization of real and personal property and as boards 
 of equalization to equalize quadrennial appraisements of real 
 property as provided in Section 5624, General Code, are hereby 
 abolished and the city boards of assessors and the county assessors 
 appointed by authority of this act shall perform all duties, exercise 
 all the powers and be subject to all the liabilities and penalties 
 devolved, conferred or imposed by law upon such officers and 
 boards within their respective jurisdictions, and all records, books, 
 plat books, maps, documents, forms, blanks and instructions of 
 
 44 
 
every kind and nature kept or used by said assessors and boards 
 in the discharge of their several duties shall be delivered by them 
 to the city board of assessors and the county assessor having 
 jurisdiction over the taxing district to which they relate, and 
 wherever in the General Code the words “assessor,” “assistant 
 assessor,” “township assessor,” “ward assessor” or “precinct 
 assessor” are used, the same shall be deemed to mean the city 
 board of assessors or the county assessor, as the case may be. 
 
 Sec. 12. County commissioners shall provide suitable office 
 rooms, necessary office furniture, supplies, books, maps, forms and 
 blanks, not otherwise supplied, in form prescribed by the Tax 
 Commission of Ohio for the use of the city boards of assessors and 
 of the county assessor holding office in their respective counties. 
 All necessary expenses for such offices shall be audited and paid 
 as other county expenses are audited and paid. Each city board 
 of assessors and each county assessor shall occupy the offices 
 provided by the county commissioners and shall keep the same 
 open for the transaction of business during all the business hours 
 of each and every day, excepting Sundays and legal holidays, as 
 required by the Tax Commission of Ohio. 
 
 Sec. 13. Every city board of assessors and every county 
 assessor is hereby authorized to appoint, employ and fix the com- 
 pensation of a secretary and such number of experts, clerks, 
 accountants, stenographers and other assistants as they may deem 
 necessary, subject to the approval of the county commissioners 
 as to number to be employed, term of service of the persons 
 employed and their compensation, to hold office during the term 
 of their employment subject to the pleasure of the assessor mak- 
 ing the appointment, and shall perform such duties and render 
 such services as the board or the assessor may prescribe. 
 
 Sec. 14. Members of city boards of assessors, county assess- 
 ors, their secretary and the experts, clerks, accountants, steno- 
 graphers and other assistants in their employ shall be entitled 
 to receive from the county their actual and necessary expenses 
 while traveling on official business required by orders issued by 
 the Tax Commission of Ohio. Such expenses shall be itemized 
 and sworn to by the person who incurred the expense, and, when 
 
 45 
 
approved by the county commissioners as to amount, shall be 
 paid by the county treasurer upon the warrant of the county 
 auditor. 
 
 Sec. 15. The salary of each member of a city board of assess- 
 ors, and of each county assessor, and of the secretary, experts, 
 clerks, accountants, stenographers and other assistants appointed 
 and employed by them shall be paid monthly out of the county 
 treasury, from the general revenue fund of the county, when 
 approved as to amount by the county commissioners, upon the 
 warrant of the county auditor upon the county treasurer. Each 
 such assessor, secretary, expert, clerk, accountant, stenographer 
 and other assistant shall make an account in detail, giving the 
 date of each day on which he was necessarily engaged in the 
 performance of his duties during the period covered by the account, 
 and verify it by oath, which the county auditor may ad- 
 minister. 
 
 Sec. 16. In case the county commissioners of any county 
 shall neglect or refuse to authorize any city board of assessors, 
 or any county assessor having jurisdiction within their county to 
 appoint, employ and properly compensate a secretary or a suffi- 
 cient number of experts, clerks, accountants, stenographers and 
 other assistants to enable such assessors properly to perform their 
 official duties and to complete the work required of them within 
 the time specified by law or by the Tax Commission of Ohio, 
 such assessors shall petition the Tax Commission of Ohio, setting 
 forth all the facts in the case, and requesting authority to make 
 such appointments. The Tax Commission of Ohio shall, after 
 due investigation, issue such order as it may deem proper in the 
 case. All persons appointed or employed by a city board of 
 assessors, or a county assessor, by authority of the Tax Commission 
 of Ohio, shall perform all the duties and shall receive the compensa- 
 tion authorized from the same source and in the same manner 
 as provided for the appointments or employment authorized and 
 approved by the county commissioners of their respective counties. 
 Each city board of assessors shall organize by electing one of its 
 members as chairman for the current year and the appointment 
 of a secretary. 
 
 46 
 
Sec. 17. Each city board of assessors and each county 
 assessor, subject to the approval of the Tax Commission of Ohio, 
 shall adopt reasonable and proper rules and regulations to govern 
 their proceedings and to regulate the mode and manner of making 
 all corrections of real and personal property assessments, investi- 
 gations, inspections and holding hearings not otherwise specifically 
 provided for. All such rules and regulations shall be uniform for 
 all city boards of assessors, and for all county assessors. All 
 proceedings shall be shown on a record of proceedings, which 
 shall be a public record, and in case of city boards of assessors, 
 all voting shall be by calling each member’s name by the secretary, 
 and each member’s vote shall be recorded as cast. Each county 
 assessor may hold hearings in any township and village in his 
 county at such times and places as he may elect. 
 
 Sec. 18. The Tax Commission of Ohio may require members 
 of city boards of assessors, and county assessors, to confer and 
 meet with the members of other city boards of assessors, and with 
 county assessors and with said Commission on any matter pertain- 
 ing to their official duties at such times and places as may from 
 time to time be approved by said Commission. 
 
 Sec. 19. City boards of assessors, and county assessors, and 
 their secretaries and assistants when authorized by such assessors 
 to do so, shall have power, for the purposes mentioned in this act, 
 to administer oaths, certify to official acts, compel the production 
 of books, accounts, papers, records, documents and testimony. 
 
 Sec. 20. City boards of assessors shall have jurisdiction 
 within the corporation limits of their respective cities, and county 
 assessors shall have jurisdiction within the limits of their respec- 
 tive counties outside the corporate limits of cities, over all 
 original assessments of real and personal property situated within 
 their respective jurisdictions, and over all original corrections of 
 such assessments whenever and by whomever made, and shall 
 make original assessments of all real and personal property found 
 to have been omitted from the tax list or not otherwise assessed. 
 The powers and duties of city boards of assessors and of county 
 assessors to be exercised in making original assessments and in 
 making original corrections of assessments of all real and personal 
 
 47 
 
property situated within their respective jurisdictions, and all 
 rules, orders and instructions issued to them by the Tax Commis- 
 sion of Ohio in regard thereto, shall be identical in every particular. 
 
 Sec. 21. County auditors shall furnish to the city boards of 
 assessors, and to the county assessor having jurisdiction within 
 their respective counties, the original assessment lists made by 
 quadrennial assessors of real property ; the original lists of personal 
 property returned by taxpayers to personal property assessors; 
 the original assessment lists made by annual assessors of personal 
 property; the original returns made by corporations to county 
 auditors, not originally assessed by the Tax Commission of Ohio, 
 and a record of any original assessment of real or personal property, 
 or of any corrections of such assessments made by the county 
 auditor for the years 1910 and 1911, with such maps, returns, 
 lists, abstracts and other papers as may be in the auditor’s office 
 pertinent to the property situated within their respective juris- 
 dictions and to the efficient performance of their duties. 
 
 Sec. 22. On or before the second Monday in January 1912, 
 and each year thereafter, the county auditor of each county shall 
 furnish to each city board of assessors, and to the county assessor 
 within his county, all necessary blank forms of statement for 
 listing personal property, moneys, credits, investments in bonds, 
 stocks, joint stock companies, or otherwise, containing all the 
 items necessary to secure accurate, full and honest returns and 
 valuations for taxation and all other blank forms necessary for 
 the proper performance of their official duties ; all such blanks shall 
 be in the form approved by the Tax Commission of Ohio. All 
 blank forms of statement for listing personal property, moneys, 
 credits, investments in bonds, stocks, joint stock companies, or 
 otherwise, required by law, shall contain two columns in which to 
 enter the true value in money of each item of property listed. 
 Entries shall be made in the first column by the owner of the 
 property, showing his statement of the value of the property. 
 Entries shall be made in the second column by the assessor, 
 showing his statement of the value of the property as assessed by 
 him for taxation. City boards of assessors, county assessors and 
 all persons, partnerships and corporations required to list all 
 
 48 
 
t 
 
 or any of the items scheduled in such statements, shall use true 
 copies of such blank statements and fill them with the true value 
 in money of the several items therein named. 
 
 Sec. 23. City boards of assessors, and county assessors shall 
 on the first Monday in June 1911, assume all duties of quadrennial 
 assessors of real property and of annual assessors of personal 
 property, and shall complete any work pertaining to the same 
 then remaining unfinished, and they shall also assume the duties 
 of all boards of review and of equalization within their respective 
 jurisdictions, in whatever condition then found in the proceedings 
 of such boards and shall thereafter complete all work required 
 for the fulfillment of such duties. City boards of assessors, and 
 county assessors, shall examine and correct the lists of property 
 and assessment made by quadrennial assessors of real property, 
 by annual assessors of personal property and by county auditors 
 for the years 1910 and 1911, of all real and personal property 
 situated within their respective jurisdictions to see if all assess- 
 ments have been made at true value in money of the property 
 assessed, and in case they find such lists to be erroneous, either 
 in the amount of property assessed to any person, partnership or 
 corporation, or in the value given to any item of property by any 
 such assessor, they shall correct such lists by placing thereon any 
 omitted property discovered by them and giving to such property, 
 as well as to any property that has been listed but incorrectly 
 assessed, the true value in money thereof, and by omitting property 
 improperly listed. 
 
 Sec. 24. During the year 1912, and each year thereafter, 
 city boards of assessors and county assessors shall assess all 
 personal property situated within their respective jurisdictions, 
 and shall assess all real property discovered by them to have been 
 omitted by the quadrennial assessors of real property. They 
 shall also correct all quadrennial assessments of real property not 
 confirmed for the quadrennial period as provided in this act, and 
 shall increase the assessment of any parcel of real property on 
 account of new structures erected thereon; or decrease the assess- 
 ment of any parcel of real property on account of the destruction 
 of any structure situated thereon since the assessment made by 
 
 49 
 
the quadrennial assessor of real property. In the p r "formance 
 of their duties they shall faithfully administer all lawo for listing 
 and assessing real and personal property, so far as such laws are 
 applicable to their work, and shall be governed in the performance 
 of their duties by all rules, orders and instructions issued to them 
 from time to time by the Tax Commission of Ohio. 
 
 Sec. 25. In reaching a determination of the true value in 
 money of all real and personal property situated within their 
 respective jurisdictions, city boards of assessors and county 
 assessors may reduce the aggregate valuation of real and personal 
 property below the aggregate valuation thereof as returned by 
 quadrennial assessors of real property and annual assessors of 
 personal property, or by county auditors, or below the aggregate 
 valuation for the preceding year ; or, they may increase the aggre- 
 gate valuation of real and personal property above the aggregate 
 valuation thereof as returned by quadrennial assessors of real 
 property and annual assessors of personal property or by county 
 auditors, or above the aggregate valuation for the preceding 
 year; or, they may leave such aggregate valuation unchanged. 
 
 Sec. 26. A member of a city board of assessors, or any county 
 assessor shall have power to administer oaths, issue subpoenas, 
 compel attendance of witnesses and the production of books, 
 accounts, papers, records, documents and the giving of testimony. 
 They shall have power to call any person before them and to exam- 
 ine him under oath regarding any or all real or personal property, 
 listed or that should be listed for taxation, and the true value in 
 money thereof, and said assessors shall correct the taxable value 
 of such property, after hearing such evidence, in such manner 
 as in their judgement they deem necessary. 
 
 In case of disobedience on the part of any person or persons 
 to comply with any order of a city board of assessors, or of a 
 county assessor, or any subpoena, or a refusal of any witness to 
 be sworn or to testify to any matter regarding which he may 
 lawfully be interrogated before a city board of assessors or a 
 county assessor, as provided in this act, it shall be the duty of 
 the court of common pleas of the county in which the property 
 which is the subject of inquiry is situated, or a judge thereof, 
 on application of a city board of assessors or of a county assessor 
 
 50 
 
to compel obedience by attachment proceedings for contempt as 
 in case of disobedience of the requirements of a subpoena issued 
 from such court or a refusal to testify therein. 
 
 Sec. 27. All real and personal property, other than property 
 originally assessed by the Tax Commission of Ohio, shall be 
 listed and valued for taxation on the first Monday in April in 
 each year; all lists of property required to be made by property 
 owners shall be made and filed with the city board of assessors, 
 or the county assessor within whose jurisdiction such property 
 is situated on or before the first Monday in May of each year; 
 the assessed value of all real and personal property listed for 
 taxation shall be compiled by city boards of assessors and 
 by county assessors within whose jurisdiction such property 
 is situated on the first Monday in June in each year; the tax 
 list for each taxing district within their respective jurisdic- 
 tions shall be compiled by city boards of assessors and by county 
 assessors and filed with the county auditor on or before the first 
 Monday in July in each year. Such tax lists shall be true 
 statements of all real and personal property listed for taxation 
 situated within each taxing district, and shall be used by taxing 
 authorities of each such district for the computation of the tax 
 rates to be levied on all property in such district for the current 
 year, and such list shall stand as the tax list of such taxing 
 district, and shall not thereafter be corrected or changed during 
 the current year excepting as ordered by a decision of the 
 county tax appeal jury, the Tax Commission of Ohio, or the 
 common pleas court. 
 
 Sec. 28. City boards of assessors and county assessors shall 
 give notice to taxpayers by advertisement, published in papers 
 selected by the county auditor, in first issue following the first 
 Monday in June in each year stating that the valuation of all 
 real and personal property listed for taxation has been completed ; 
 that a statement showing how property listed in his name had been 
 valued for taxation will be mailed to any taxpayer applying for 
 the same and enclosing a two-cent stamp for return postage, and 
 that all protests against the valuations assessed will be heard if 
 filed with the city board of assessors, or the county assessor, 
 furnishing the statement, during the month of June and that 
 
 5i 
 
corrections of assessments cannot be made during the current 
 year unless a protest against the same is filed with the assessor 
 within the month of June. 
 
 Sec. 29. The statement provided for in this act to be fur- 
 nished taxpayers on their request showing assessed valuations of 
 all real and personal property shall, in case of real property, 
 describe the real property by the description thereof on the tax 
 list for the current year, stating the valuation of the land 
 and of the structures or improvements thereon separately, and 
 the name of the taxpayer in which it is assessed. In the case of 
 personal property the statement shall show only the name of the 
 taxpayer and the total amount of personal property assessed in 
 his name. The contents of lists of personal property, subscribed 
 and sworn to by taxpayers and filed with city boards of assessors, 
 and with county assessors, shall not be disclosed or made 
 public excepting as may be made necessary in hearing evidence 
 for the correction of the same. 
 
 Sec. 30. Each city board of assessors and each county 
 assessor shall keep a public record of every change made in the 
 valuation of any real or personal property situated in any taxing 
 district within their jurisdiction, after the certification of the 
 tax list for such district, showing by what authority the change 
 was ordered and giving a citation to the record of facts upon 
 which such change in valuation was based. 
 
 Sec. 31. It shall be the duty of every taxpayer to co-operate 
 with and assist city boards of assessors and county assessors in 
 the work of obtaining a complete list of all real and personal 
 property situated within their respective jurisdictions and in 
 assessing the same at its true value in money. 
 
 Any taxpayer who fails or refuses to file with the city board of 
 assessors, or the county assessor, of the city or county within 
 which property owned by him is situated, on or before the first 
 Monday in May in each year, a list of all such property, real and 
 personal, subscribed and sworn to as required by law, shall not 
 be entitled to file any protest thereafter as to the valuation at 
 which any part or all of his property is assessed. 
 
 Any taxpayer who files with the city board of assessors, or 
 with the county assessor, on or before the first Monday in May, 
 
 52 
 
a complete list of all real and personal property owned by him 
 and situated within the jurisdiction of such assessor, duly sub- 
 scribed and sworn to as required by law, may, on or before the 
 first Monday in July following file with such assessor a protest 
 against the valuation for taxation placed upon any part or all of 
 his property. Every such protest shall show the character and 
 location of the property, the taxable value of which is protested 
 against, and contain a statement of facts showing why the assess- 
 ment is too high and the amount of the over- valuation claimed. 
 
 It shall be the duty of every city board of assessors and of 
 every county assessor to enter on the tax list for each taxing 
 district compiled by them a statement, in the case of each valua- 
 tion protested against, showing the fact that a protest has been 
 filed and the amount of over- valuation claimed. 
 
 Sec 32. The judges of the common pleas court having juris- 
 diction shall appoint a county tax appeal jury for each county, 
 consisting of three members. Such jury shall take office on the 
 first Monday in July in each year and shall be in session daily 
 thereafter until discharged. They shall make a report to the 
 judge of the common pleas court by whom they were appointed 
 on the Saturday of each week showing the number of protests 
 unheard at the beginning of the week and the number on which 
 a decision was rendered during the week. As soon as every 
 protest has been heard and a decision thereon has been rendered, 
 the jury shall be discharged. 
 
 Sec. 33. Each member of a county tax appeal jury shall 
 receive compensation for each and every day they are in session, 
 of not to exceed ten dollars per diem, which shall be determined 
 by the judge making the appointments. Each such jury shall 
 select its own foreman, shall appoint a chief clerk and employ 
 such clerks, stenographers and other assistants as it may deem 
 necessary, and fix their compensation subject to the approval of 
 the judges of the common pleas court. 
 
 The county commissioners of each county shall provide 
 suitable furnished office rooms in which such jury shall hold 
 sessions, but the jury may hold sessions in a township, village or 
 city in which any property is situated against the assessed value 
 of which a protest has been filed. The compensation of the 
 
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members of the jury and of its chief clerk and employes, together 
 with all necessary expenses incurred by it and all traveling expenses 
 incurred by the jury and its employes when absent from the 
 county seat for the purpose of holding sessions in any township, 
 village or city in their county, shall be paid monthly out of county 
 frnids by the county treasurer on an order approved by the judges 
 of the common pleas court on the warrant of the county auditor. 
 Upon request of the jury, the court of common pleas shall issue 
 orders to compel the attendance and the giving of testimony 
 by witnesses and all proceedings before the jury shall be conducted 
 according to the rules and regulations governing the proceedings 
 and business of common pleas courts. When a jury has finished 
 its work it shall so report to the judges of the common pleas court 
 by which it was appointed and that court shall thereupon discharge 
 the jury and order its records deposited with the county auditor. 
 
 Sec. 34. In case a taxpayer is dissatisfied with the decision 
 of the county tax appeal jury, he shall have the right to appeal 
 from that decision to the Tax Commission of Ohio, provided such 
 appeal is made within thirty days after the decision of the county 
 tax appeal jury is rendered. 
 
 Sec. 35. In case a taxpayer is dissatisfied with the decision 
 of the Tax Commission of Ohio, he shall have the right to appeal 
 from that decision to the court of common pleas having jurisdic- 
 tion over the county in which the property is located, the valua- 
 tion of which is protested against. The decision of the common 
 pleas court shall be final. 
 
 Sec. 36. In case the tax assessed upon property against the 
 valuation of which a protest has been filed becomes due before a 
 decision on such protest has been rendered and accepted by the 
 taxpayer, or a final decision has been rendered by a court of 
 common pleas, the owner of the property shall pay the full amount 
 of the tax as assessed. In case the decision of the county tax 
 appeal jury, or the Tax Commission of Ohio, or of the common 
 pleas court, is in his favor, the authority rendering the decision shall 
 issue to him an order on the county auditor for a refund of the 
 hill amount of tax paid on the excess valuation, with interest 
 
 the rate of six per cent, per annum from the date of tax 
 payment to date of refund together with an allowance on 
 
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account of costs and expenses incurred in prosecuting his claim, 
 amount of said allowance to be determined by the authority issu- 
 ing the order. 
 
 Sec. 37. It shall be the duty of the city board of assessors, 
 or of the county assessor, to defend the assessments made by them 
 against every protest alleging over-valuation before the county 
 tax appeal jury, the Tax Commission of Ohio and the common 
 pleas court, and to this end they shall have the same right of appeal 
 provided for taxpayers in Sections 34 and 35 of this act. 
 
 Sec. 38. The valuation of all real property when determined 
 by a decision of a county tax appeal jury, the Tax Commission of 
 Ohio, or a court of common pleas shall remain unchanged during 
 the quadrennial period ending with the year 1914, excepting 
 the value of new structures may be added and the value of struc- 
 tures destroyed may be deducted by city boards of assessors and 
 by county assessors as provided in this act, and the value of any 
 parcel of real estate, with the structures and improvements thereon, 
 not finally determined by such authority may be corrected by 
 by such assessors in any year as provided in this act for the cor- 
 rection of original assessments, but such corrections may be pro- 
 tested against and such protests shall be heard and determined as 
 provided in this act for the hearing and final determination of 
 protests against original assessments. 
 
 Sec. 39. That all acts and sections of the General Code in 
 conflict with the provisions of this act and said original Sections 
 3349, 3365, 5404, 5405, 5580, 5591, 5593, 5594, 5599, 5600, 5601, 
 5618 and 5624 of the General Code be and the same are hereby 
 repealed. 
 
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