PART 4. THE PROPERTY TAX: ASSESSMENT AND 
CONTENTS 
Page Page 
TA tROGUICUIOM a = a a eee ee a ae a a 77 | Assessment—Continued. 
PACSS@SSTIN OT eee ra ef MO LE rca pa KE 79 Results of assessment______-------------- 119 
Meaning of assessment_____-----------_-- 79 Causes of inequality____________________- 142 
Original assessment-___..---------------- 80 WOMCHISTOMS ee ee Mh eee aN oes aM fates a 144 
Revision of assessment____-_-_---------- OS ia REACp DORULOT IN Crit pees ae ae om eee 145 
Principles of valuation.___...--_-------- 100 ADS VAS CUSED Bao e eo eee eee 145 
AISSeSSINeNG PALIOSae see ae eee ee ee 104 UA MN i er eS la ds I cr I ce ea 149 
INTRODUCTION 
From the earliest colonial settlements down to the present day the 
chief financial reliance of the American Colonies and States and their 
various subdivisions has been upon the property tax. ‘This statement 
still holds true in spite of a recent decline in the relative importance 
of the tax. The special problem of forest taxation is essentially 
a property-tax problem, and it is therefore necessary to give special 
attention to this tax. 
The property tax is a direct tax levied annually, usually at a 
uniform rate within a given taxing district, on the assessed value of all 
taxable property within that district. During the early history of 
the property tax so little property was exempt from the tax that it 
was given, and well deserved, the name of ‘‘general property tax’’, 
meaning a uniform tax on all or virtually all kinds of property; in 
recent times so many classes of property have been removed from the 
tax base that the term ‘“‘general’’, in this sense, does not always seem 
appropriate. 
The name ‘‘general property tax” is now commonly used, as by 
the United States Census, to distinguish the direct tax upon real 
estate and upon other property treated by the same methods as real 
estate from ‘‘special property taxes’’, frequently imposed, by methods 
different from those applied to property generally, upon public- 
utility companies, banks, savings banks, insurance companies, and 
other corporations. This terminology is followed in the present 
report. 
In this report the term “‘property tax’ is used in its broadest 
sense to include all direct taxes upon property, whether general or 
special. The present part, however, concerns itself only with the 
general property tax as commonly applied to real estate and personal 
property subject to it. Special property taxes do not ordinarily 
come within the field of the forest-tax problem. Special modifications 
of the property tax with reference to forest property are examined 
later in this bulletin (pt. 9). 
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