FRANCE. 



NEW VALUATION OF UNBUII.T ON LAND. 



PART. I. 



VALUATION PROCEDURE. 



OFFICIAI< SOURCE. 



Report of M. Charles Dumont, Minister of Finance, on the Entire Work of Valuation 

 of Unbuilt on I^anded Properties, ordered by article 3 of thel^awof December 31st., 1907, 



§ I. Introduction. 



The yield of the soil has always been one of the chief sources of govern- 

 ment revenue. When, in 1894, M.Poincare, at that time Minister of Finance, 

 resolved to convert the land tax on unbuilt on land into a tax on net yield 

 of the land, he first caused the principle of a new valuation of unbuilt on land 

 to be approved by Parliament in article 4 of the law of July 21st., 1894. 



From the date of the promulgation of that law, the Department of Di- 

 rect Taxation undertook to study the most suitable means for ensuring 

 the execution of the work under the most favourable conditions possible. 



It tried first to calculate the whole income of each landholder from his 

 land according to the nature of his farm. This system gave very unsatis- 

 factory results, as it was based upon the statements of the parties con- 

 cerned or on the calculations of local commissions. The Government was 

 thus led to recognise that in order to ascertain the taxable revenue of the 

 various tax payers with sufficient accuracy, it was necessary to have 

 detailed estimates. 



A new experiment made in this sense in fact gave practical results, 

 and it was applied by way of trial in one commune in each department. 



According to this system, for the new valuation four essential oper- 

 ations were necessary : 



{a) Division of the kinds of farm in classes varying with the fertility 

 of the soil, and the establishment of the net average yield per ha. in each class; 

 {b) Distribution of aU the parcels of the area among these different 

 classes ; 



