024 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. 8. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
enough that the theory of the property tax contemplates no such 
race between assessor and taxpayer to secure the maximum share of 
timber values. It is true that, in some cases, what amounts to the 
same result may come from a perfectly legal operation of the property 
tax. For example, in a district in which timber forms a predominant 
part of the tax base, the steady reduction of the tax base due to re- 
moval of timber may compel the local authorities to strive to meet 
public expenditures by constantly raising the tax rate upon the 
remaining taxable property. Provided all property were assessed at 
its true value, this operation would be quite legal and might never- 
theless furnish inducement to the timber owners to liquidate as 
rapidly as possible. In most cases the race between the assessor and 
the owner is evidence of improper assessment; either the assessor is 
overvaluing the timber or he is pushing up its assessment out of 
proportion to the assessment of other classes of property. In general, 
.the remedy for this situation lies in correct assessment under the 
property tax or, where this still leaves a burden of taxation greater 
than can be borne, reduction in the cost of local government. 
The imperfections of the property tax have been disclosed by the 
evidence presented in previous parts of this report. In particular it 
has been shown that assessment—the heart of the property tax— 
falls short of the legal requirements. The pressure to reduce assess- 
ments seems to be too great for the local assessors to resist. They feel 
that assessment at less than true value reduces the number of com- 
plaints, since many taxpayers believe that because their assessments 
are below the legal level they are obtaining an advantage over their 
neighbors. These local assessors often either set minimum assessed 
values, or attempt to maintain a certain total valuation for a district, 
or make horizontal increases or decreases in the assessment for all 
property in a district or for some one class of property. These are all 
illegal devices serving to base the property tax on something other 
than value and to avoid the equitable distribution of the tax burden 
by means of the tax rate. The agencies for review and equalization 
are in most States ineffective. 
Not only is departure from the legal standard of assessment the 
general custom, but this departure is accompanied by erratic assess- 
ment of individual properties relative to the average assessment ratio ™ 
of the taxing district. In fact, it has been found that in general the 
ereater the departure from the legal standard of assessment, the greater 
the degree of variation among the assessment ratios of individual 
properties. Timberlands are assessed at decidedly different ratios of 
actual value in different taxing districts, sometimes being treated 
favorably and sometimes unfavorably. Wherever it is possible to 
segregate definitely a cut-over forest-land class, it was found to be 
heavily overassessed in comparison with other real estate. This 
overassessment of cut-over land is consistent with the general ten- 
dency, discovered by other investigators and confirmed by this 
study, to overassess properties of low price relative to those of high 
price. All of these inequalities in assessment, whether among indi- 
viduals, classes of property, or political subdivisions, result in cor- 
responding inequalities in the distribution of the tax burden, except 
that differences between political subdivisions are sometimes mitigated 
by equalization. 
55 The assessment ratio is the ratio, expressed as a percentage, of the assessed value to the true value (or 
whatevez fraction of true value is the statutory basis of assessment). 
