4 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 448 



The records on which this study is based were taken in 1945 and economic con- 

 ditions were then such, perhaps, as to encourage a greater than usual interest in 

 the values levied by others, but there was an undertone of wanting to be fair, 

 to keep things in line. When we stop to recall that there are 300 towns in the 

 state, 900 assessors in these towns, and roughly 18,000 farms of very diverse 

 kinds, the challenge of uniformity presents a complex situation. 



VALUATION IN PRACTICE 



Poultrymen, fruit growers, and farmer'^ in other fields may rightly wonder 

 why dairying was singled out for special attention, and a few may even assume 

 that the dairy industry gets preferred consideration. This despite the fact that 

 dairying is no longer without a rival as the major type of farming in Massachu- 

 setts. The answer to the question is easy to find; the availability of basic data. 

 The subsidy programs; the marketing studies; the general geographic distribu- 

 tion of the dairy farms all contribute towards the development of data. 



Concentration of effort on the dairy farms neither precludes nor forbids ex- 

 pressing in general terms conclusions pertaining to buildings, land, or personal 

 property. Sufftcient data were secured on farms other than dairy to suggest 

 that variation in valuation is not the result of type of farming. Vegetable grow- 

 ers, apple growers, or tobacco growers face the same general situation; the 

 differences if any are ones of degree. 



The passing attention given to taxes per se may also invite wonder. Taxes 

 are what property owners pay. Taxes are the "burden." It was the tax situation 

 that brought about this study. But taxes have meaning only in relation to 

 som.ething else: the services received; the ability to pay; the taxes of others; the 

 errors of the past; the hopes for the future; and the specific tax components — 

 tax rate and valuation. And of the two the tax rate i= apt to be a function of 

 the valuation. 



In its simplest aspects, the amount appropriated at town meeting is divided 

 by the valuation of the taxable property to get the mill rate, and multipHed by 

 1000 to get the rate per $1000 of valuation. Occasionally towns make a point of 

 maintaining a given tax rate. In this event variation in appropriations (barring 

 windfalls of unexpended balances) has to be reflected in valuation. Or what is 

 more likelv to happen is that the amount appropriated remains stable. The 

 valuation of all taxable property in a town is a slowly changing aggregate. Annual 

 changes in expenditures may be more promptly reflected in the tax rate. 



Valuations, of course, like ta.xes or tax rates lose some of their meaning when 

 extracted from the body of pertinent elements. They differ, however, in this 

 major respect — they are not mathematically determined. They are a mathe- 

 matical expression of an opinion on value arrived at via the means at hand. 

 Valuation further represents the personal financial relationship of the property 

 owner to the town. The tax rate is a community affair. 



VALUATION OF REAL PROPERTY 



Real property consists of buildings and land; the house, the barn, the sheds, 

 the mowing, the pasture, and the woodland. If the acreage is greater than 

 three or if the produce therefrom exceeds $250 annually the land with its 

 structures is a farm according to census definition. Valuation lists do not speci- 

 fically classify farms and the assessors' concept is apt to be less limited than 

 that of the census. 



