Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1920 — IRONING OUT THE TAX MUDDLE [ARTICLE]

IRONING OUT THE TAX MUDDLE

Members of Old Board of Review Reappointed by Judge.

The Jasper County Board of Review yesterday morning by a unanimous. • vote, signed up the certification to the state board of tax commissioners of the 1919 assessments as certified to the latter last year, before tie hori zontal increases were made by the state board.

Judge Hanley, la compliance with the new “curative tax law,” appointed Ellis Jones of Remington and C. R. Peregrine of Tefft, Democrat and Republican, respectively, as the appointive members of the county board of review, which met Monday with the county assessor, auditor and treasurer, the other members of the board, to reconsider the assessments of the various taxing units of Jasper county for the year 1919, as ordered by the state tax board. In several counties in the state the county boards of review have raised the various units to conform with the horizontal increases made by the state board of tax commissioners in 1919 and which were held illegal recently by the supreme court. In several other counties the boards re-certified the assessments to the state board as they were certified to the latter in 1919. < This Utter certification is not what the state board wants. It wants to be vindicated on the horizontal raises it made In the different unite in the c6untles, even though such action puts the boards of reviewin a hole. The boards of review were on the ground In 1919 and went carefully over the assessments In the different units in their respective conntiea. They certified their findings unde* oath to the state tax board. The latter, in effect, said that the esiunty boards of review were composed of a set of perjurers, and cast their findings aside and changed the assessments to suit themselves, although, perhaps, not a member of the state board had ever set Toot In one-half of the counties in which these horizontal increases were made.

The supreme court held that the state board had no right whatever to make such increases; that this was a perrogatlve vested solely in the county boards. * In Jasper county the state board raised all real estate in the county (exclusive of Wheatfield corporation, which was not changed) 10 per cent/, except Remington, which was raised 20 per cent; personal assessment* in Milroy, Gillam, Remington and Rensselaer, raised 40 per cent; personal assessments in all other townships raised 80 per cent. The state board has authority to" raise the valuations of counties as a whole, to equalize the assessments as between counties, and with the certifications of the original findings it is practically assured that such counties will be raised by the state board. However, such raise affects all the taxpayers of the, county the same and does not cause the inequality practiced by the raises made in the various units of a county by the state board In 1919. At best, though, it is expected that many lawsuits wIU result before the matter is finally threshed out.