92 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. 8. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
given it as his opinion that relatively high minimum assessed values 
of cut-over lands were established by the tax commission in order 
that the average total tax rate in the State might not be greatly 
increased; because, as the tax paid by the railroads and other public 
utilities is determined by applying this average total tax rate in the 
State to the valuation fixed by the State tax commission, any large 
cheese in the average tax rate would work a hardship on the public 
utilities 
The results of the artificial and arbitrary establishment of minimum 
values for taxation purposes may be made manifest in either one of 
two ways. The most usual result is that the land with a market 
value below the fixed minimum assessment is forced into government 
ownership through the operation of the tax laws relating to delin- 
quency. A minimum assessed value may also keep government 
land out of private ownership. In Nevada the minimum assessed 
valuation of private land makes the continued public ownership of 
a large part of the range land a necessity. A recent report of the 
Nevada State Range Commission indicates that private ownership 
of the range cannot now be brought about because these lands do not 
have sufficient value to pay costs of supervision and the tax which 
would be levied on the present established minimum assessment 
(40). 
Not only are arbitrary minimum values established by law or 
custom, but sometimes maximum values are established as well, and 
in the extreme case, all land is assessed at one uniform amount ber 
acre regardless of quality or location. This is the case in a certain 
township of northern Minnesota. In this township all real estate, 
farm, timber, or cut-over, improved or unimproved, was assessed in 
1926 at from $14.82 to $14.88 per acre. ‘The assessor’s excuse for 
this practice was the fact that it produced less opposition than if he 
had attempted to differentiate properties as to value. In another 
Minnesota township the assessor valued all of the land at the same 
unit rate, except in the case of a few 40-acre tracts containing clay 
soil. In other Minnesota districts, 1t is not the custom to assess farm 
land any higher than adjoining land in a wild state because many 
assessors hold that when the farmer has created value in his own 
land and adjoining land by his own industry he should not be 
penalized by a higher tax than that paid by the landowner who 
does nothing; or because they feel that he simply is unable to bear 
the tax burden on the actual value of his improved land. 
INTENTIONAL DISCRIMINATIONS 
Many of the assessment methods so far discussed are quite inde- 
faible though they do not necessarily represent intentional dis- 
crimination. In many cases, however, an assessor deliberately 
assesses property of certain individuals at relatively low or at 
unreasonably high amounts, with the idea of favoring friends or of 
punishing enemies. Just as bad from the legal, though perhaps not 
from the moral point of view, is the deliberate underassessment of 
certain industries which are deemed necessary to the prosperity of 
the town or county. A case of this type came to light in Wisconsin, 
where a town chairman admitted that a certain resort development 
in his town was assessed at only a small fraction of its value, much 
lower than the general level of assessment, because the owners of the 
i 
