98 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. 8. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
The sales data supporting the 1930 equalization, for example, 
consist of about 81,000 transfers, chiefly during the period 1924 to 
1926. Seventy thousand of these sales considerations were obtained 
by means of the Federal stamps attached to deeds and mortgages. 
Now that the Federal stamp tax has been repealed, the New York 
Commission is without adequate means of determining ratios of 
assessed to true value. MS 
The Wisconsin Tax Commission seems to have gone one step farther 
than New York in determining equalized county valuations by means 
of sales data. In New York and in Wisconsin, prior to 1925, the 
tax commission made the assumption that the assessor was assessing 
all property in his district at the ratio revealed by the sales. The 
Wisconsin Tax Commission has come to the following conclusion: 
As a matter of fact, however, the sales do not constitute a random sample in 
either country or city. Certain classes of property sell more frequently than do 
other classes. As a result, the sales are often nearly all of one type of property 
and the ratio of the assessment to the sales value of this type cf property may be 
quite different from that of the types for which there are few or no sales. Thus, 
in rural districts farms may sell and wild lands not sell, or small farms may sell 
and large farms not sell, or po r farms sell and good farms not sell. In cities, 
manufacturing plants practically never sell except at a great sacrifice in winding 
up the affairs of a defunct concern or as a part of a transfer of a whole business 
including good will. Mercantile establishments, especially the larger ones, very 
seldom sell. Even large residences are not sold as frequently as the smaller ones. 
Since classification of property has been nstituted, we have learned that different 
classes and types of property are usually assessed at different ratios of sales value. 
Using the ratio of assessments to the sales prices of the property which sold usually 
gave a ratio which, if applied to the total real estate assessment, produced a 
result which was far from the actual value of property (68, Rept. 1930, pp. 14-18). 
The supervisor of assessments, working under the direction of the 
Wisconsin Tax Commission, obtains sales data by land and property 
classes. By the use of these sales, by personal inspections, and by 
use of other evidences of value, he computes— 
assessment ratios for each class of land and of improvements and applies these 
ratios to the classified assessment of the town. These valuations by the super- 
visor are used to build equalized values (58, Rept. 1930, p. 19). 
LIMITED RESULTS OF EQUALIZATION 
The failure of boards of equalization to produce equal and legal 
assessments and to do away with maladjustment is a necessary corol- 
lary to their limited powers. Their powers extend only to the 
equalization of assessments between districts, where only a minor 
part of the maladjustment lies. The major part lies within the dis- 
tricts themselves and can be remedied only by improvement in the 
initial assessment. Moreover the correction made by State equaliza- 
tion relates only to the State tax, and county equalization corrects 
only the county and State taxes, not the town or other subordinate- 
district taxes. The State tax is generally far less in amount than the 
local taxes. 
The tax commission of the State of Washington realized the short- 
comings of equalization in making the following statement. 
While in theory the statutory prescribed method of valuing property and 
equalizing assessments was intended to equalize the tax burdens, actual practice 
and experience have amply demonstrated that if through erroneous initial as- 
sessments the valuations of assessed property lack relative uniformity, no sub- 
sequent action by boards of review or equalization can rectify the inequalities 
and injustice that inevitably follow (54, p. 8). 
