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Pagg Twelve 



THE I. A. A. RECORD 



January, 1931 



Hope for Reassessment 



Personal Property in Cook 



Local Real Estate Taxpayers Fight 



to Make Personal Property 

 " Carry Part of Tax Load. 



Wm. H. Malone 



A STATEMENT declaring that the 

 Illinois Tax Commission will exer- 

 cise every power it has under the 

 statutes to bring about an adequate as- 

 sessment of personal property for 1930 

 in Cook county, was issued by Chair- 

 man "William H. Malone recently. 



The commission denied the request of 

 the Association of Real Estate Taxpay- 

 ers in Cook County 

 for a reassessment of 

 personal property as 

 of April 1, 1929, on 

 the ground that such 

 an order would cause 

 a breakdown in lo- 

 cal government, 

 since 1929 taxes are 

 collectible on April 

 1 . Sufficient time 

 does not remain to 

 complete a reassess- 

 ment by that date, the commission said. 



/ Legislation Needed 



"It is apparent to the commission and 

 to its advisory committee," the state- 

 ment continued, "that additional legis- 

 lation will be necessary in order to 

 make this result possible; and the com- 

 mission and its advisory committee will 

 give its assistance in the preparation of 

 the necessary bills to be submitted at 

 the present session of the legislature." 

 It is understood that Hayden Bell, 

 attorney for the Cook County Board of 

 Commissioners, and I. T. Greenacre will 

 assist in drafting the necessary bills for 

 this legislation. In the meantime, the 

 tax commission and its advisory com- 

 mittee will inunediately begin the work 

 of mapping out steps that can be taken 

 toward bringing about an equitable re- 

 assessment of personal property in Cook 

 county. , 



Ohio Makes 'Em Pay 

 ' Part of the legislation desired is a 

 modern assessment blank for personal 

 property, such as is used in Ohio. In 

 Cinciimati and Cleveland about 25 per 

 cent of the total tax revenue is ob- 

 tained from personal property. Only 

 half that percentage is obtained in Chi- 

 cago. 



At a recent hearing before the state 

 tax commission Harry C. Cutmore, di- 

 rector of the Cook county real estate 

 reassessment, charged that personal 

 property in Cook county is now assessed 

 by payroUers and job holders who make 

 their appraisals while sitting on their 

 stools in the county building. "If any- 



one set out deliberately to do the worst 

 kind of a job of assessing personal prop- 

 erty, he would arrive at something like 

 the present situation we have in Cook 

 county," said Cutmore. ' -'■^:^L-■::^:■l^' 



It is urged by tax students that the 

 board of assessors and board of review 

 in Cook county be abolished, that an 

 expert appraiser be employed to make 

 original assessments, and that a review- 

 ing group having well defined and lim- 

 ited powers be selected. 



Too Much Local Gov't. 



Held Cause High Taxes 



Tax Commissioner Tells How New 

 York State Equalized Tax Load' 



Wm. H. Malone Quits 



As State Tax Chief 



AS we go to press newspaper dis- 

 patches announce the resignation 

 of Chairman William H. Malone of the 

 state tax commission. 



Illinois farmers will regret the loss 

 of Mr. Malone's services to this impor- 

 tant o£ce. He made a record for fair- 

 ness and honesty in administering the 

 tax laws of the state. Orders of re- 

 assessment issued by the tax commis- 

 sion during recent years have been ef- 

 fective in equalizing property values in 

 many downstate counties. The cour- 

 ageous order of reassessment issued in 

 Cook county was credited with smash- 

 ing the tax fixing racket which had 

 held full sway for many years. Chair- 

 man Malone and his associates invari- 

 ably gave the Farm Bureau tax com- 

 mittees and I. A. A. representatives a 

 courteous hearing. 



Omer Custer, former state treasurer 

 from Galesburg, is being prominently 

 mentioned as Mr. Malone's successor. 



More Dividends Paid ; ' 

 • To Bureau Members 



The Tri-Coimty Oil Company, Mon- 

 mouth, recently paid a 10% patronage 

 dividend and declared a special 5% 

 patronage refund to be paid at a later 

 date. Five hundred and thirty-nine 

 Farm Bureau members received an aver- 

 age of $22.66, or a total of $12,215.27. 



The Peoria County Service Company 

 paid an 8% patronage refund to Farm 

 Bureau members and has declared an- 

 other special patronage refund of 8% 

 to be paid in the future. More than 

 $12,000 will be returned to Farm Bu- 

 reau member patrons of this company. 



The DeWitt County Service Com- 

 pany recently declared an annual pat- 

 ronage refund of 5% to be paid during 

 the present fiscal year. 



t(T N my opinion we have too much 

 J- local government — too many 

 units of local government — and too 

 many local ofBcials spending our 

 money." This is the way Mark Graves, 

 New York state tax commissioner 

 summarized his reasons for high taxes 

 in a recent address before the American 

 Farm Bureau Federation at Boston. 



"Just because our forefathers a few 

 generations ago established a certain 

 system of local government constitutes 

 no reason why it should therefore re- 

 main unchanged," he said. "We per- 

 form no part of the work on our farms 

 today as our grandfathers did. Times 

 have changed. Methods of transacting 

 business have changed and methods of 

 farming have changed. ,; j:^ 



Pure Extravagance //'::/% 



"Just as certainly then methods of 

 transacting governmenal business 

 should change, and the machinery of 

 government should be altered accord- 

 ingly. Specifically I wish to be under- 

 stood as saying we have many small, 

 poor, insignificant units of local gov- 

 ernment — towns, villages, and especial- 

 ly school districts and some counties — 

 which we can ill afford to maintain and 

 which it is pure extravagance to con- 

 tinue. It is not too early to give heed 

 to this condition. It is the duty of 

 the state to equalize taxes to meet the 

 necessary cost of government. No ob- 

 ligation rests upon the state to pay any 

 part of the cost of an unnecessary 

 agency or unit of government." 

 ;.; Mr. Graves discussed in detail the 

 ■ measures taken by the New York state 

 legislature to make possible the equali- 

 zation of rural and urban taxes. A 

 review of a period of 12 years in se- 

 lected typical counties revealed, he said, 

 that the increase in the tax load has 

 been two and one-half times as great 

 in the purely rural communities as in 

 wealthy populous counties. 



Highw^ays and Schools 



"We found that most of the increase 

 was due to highway and school ex- 

 penses," he continued. "Having local- 

 ized the cause we then proceeded to 

 devise methods of securing a better 

 equalization of the cost of highways 

 and schools. This program embraced 

 several pieces of legislation." 



A bill was recentlj introduced in the Massa- 

 chusetts legislature providing for an automobile 

 insurance companj managed and controlled bj 

 the state ia competition with private companies. 



Uncle Ab says that persons who 

 differ with us may be just as good 

 as we are, at that! 





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