CHANGE OF LOCATION OR SALE OF PERSONAL PROPERTY.

Until 1907, the law required township boards of review to meet in the month of May, but the Legislature of 1907 amended the law so that now such boards meet on the Tuesday, following the first Monday in June; but no change was made in Section 17, which provides that "No change of location or sale of any personal property, after the first day of May in any one year shall affect the assessment made in such year." We recommend that the first day of June be substituted in this Section for the first day of May. This will give the supervisor authority to consider changes of location or sale of personal property up to the time he completes his assessment roll.

SEPARATION OF LAND AND BUILDING VALUES.

In reviewing assessments throughout the state, one of the greatest objections we have found is the lack of uniformity in assessments, and we find that the principal cause for this is that the assessing officer has not appraised land and buildings separately. No satisfactory comparison can be made of two properties unless the land and buildings are separately listed. One farm of good land may have poor buildings, while another farm of much poorer land may have splendid buildings, and to compare the value of these properties on the basis of the aggregate value alone, is far from satisfactory. We therefore recommend that assessment rolls be required to show land and building values separately. The rolls in the city of Detroit, and in some other cities in the State, are thus made and the results have been found far more satisfactory than where the aggregate value only is entered upon the roll.

DEEDS TO STATE TRUE CONSIDERATION.

Inasmuch as the Constitution and laws of the state require that all property shall be assessed at its true cash value, and the Legislature has declared that the term "cash value" shall be held to mean the usual selling price of the property, we believe a law should be enacted requiring that every deed shall set forth the true consideration for which the property is sold. The present practice, in a majority of cases, is to enter the consideration as "one dollar and other valuable consideration." There is no better index as to the value of property in a community than the price which residents of the community are willing to pay for property therein, and if each deed is required to contain

the true consideration, the assessing officer will have valuable assistance in arriving at values for assessment purposes. At present, even when the consideration is given as more than one dollar, there is no certainty that the amount reported is the true consideration, and it is therefore not safe to make use of amounts reported in deeds without complete investigation of the sales.

COST OF REVIEWS.

During the past nine years, the Tax Commission has completely reassessed nearly every county in the State, but in many cases supervisors have not continued the work done for them but have permitted assessments to remain exactly as fixed by this Board in spite of the fact that values in general have greatly increased since such reviews were held. In such cases, it will be necessary to again reassess and review many assessing districts and it is not fair that the taxpayers in the balance of the State, where property is properly assessed, should be called upon to bear the expense of such reassessment. The taxpayers in a district whose assessor has honestly and conscientiously endeavored to make a proper assessment should not be penalized by the practices of unscrupulous persons who attempt to gain political favor by making illegal assessments. It seems proper to us that where assessments are hereafter reviewed and found to be more than a certain per cent― say ten per cent-under the true cash value as determined by this Board, the entire expense of such review should be paid by the offending district. In some cases men have sought to gain the office of assessor by promis ing to reduce assessments from the amounts fixed by this Board. This practice, we are satisfied, would be entirely destroyed if it were known that the expense of a reassessment would have to be borne by the township. No hardship would be worked upon the assessing officer who has conscientiously tried to do his duty and the entire State would benefit thereby.

ERRONEOUS DESCRIPTIONS.

When reviewing assessment rolls, many instances of incorrect description of property are found, yet under a strict interpretation of the law the Board of State Tax Commissioners has no authority to correct such descriptions. It may review and change the valuation but no change in a description can be made after it has been approved by the local board of review. It is often times as important that a description should be corrected as that a valuation should be changed, and Section 152 of the General Tax Law should therefore be amended to permit such action.

VILLAGE ASSESSORS.

Section 116 of the General Tax Law provides a penalty if any supervisor or other assessing officer "of any township or city" shall wilfully assess property at other than its true cash value. This Section should be amended to include village assessors in its provisions. While the law authorizing village assessments provides that the assessors shall be governed by the provisions of law relative to township assessments, the omission of the village assessors from the above section has led them to believe they are not subject to the same provisions relative to assessments at cash value.

MORTGAGE TAX LAW.

Owners of mortgages have almost universally availed themselves of the privilege of Act No. 91 of the Public Acts of 1911, by which a small specific tax is paid at the time of recording the mortgage, but only rarely have the owners of land contracts availed themselves of this Act, although the Act provides that no such contract may be received in evidence in any action or proceeding at law or in equity until such tax has been paid. While it is generally believed that mortgages or land contracts upon which the specific tax has not been paid are subject to taxation under the provisions of the General Tax Law, the claim is made that no other tax can be levied against such property; that the general tax law cannot be applied even though the specific tax is not paid. An amendment should be made to this law specifically providing that unless the specific tax is paid, mortgages and land contracts shall be subject to general taxation.

Section 4 of the mortgage tax law provides that the Board of State Tax Commissioners shall determine the amount of tax to be paid on mortgages covering property partly within and partly without the state, and provides that in such mortgages immediately after each separate description of real property a statement of the value of that description shall be made. This provision, in many cases, is impracticable, as a large number of the mortgages submitted to this Board are on railroad property and it is practically an impossibility to place a value on each piece of property making up a railroad, and even in the case of many industrial properties it would be difficult to appraise each separate item. Most of the mortgages thus presented to this Board for determination of the tax are prepared in other states and recorded therein before being brought to Michigan, and frequently the provisions of our law are unknown until an attempt is made to record the mortgages. To require fulfillment of all the provisions of our law would mean that new mortgages would have to be prepared and offered in place of the old ones. An amendment that would provide that

there might be included in the mortgage, or attached thereto, a statement showing the value of the property covered by the mortgage in each state in which the property is located, would answer all requirements.

The present law requires that the notice to be served upon the mortgagor and mortgagee, in case the property is in more than one state, shall contain a description of the property covered by the mortgage. This entails an unnecessary amount of work, as the mortgage can be clearly described without giving the actual descriptions of property covered thereby. It should not be necessary that notice of the hearings provided by law should be served by a sheriff. Service by registered mail will in practically every case prove sufficient. In fact, in the practice of this Board service of notices has been very rarely required, as waivers of all notice are usually filed with the mortgage in order to save time in the determination of the tax. The law now requires that after the tax has been determined, notice shall be sent to the register of deeds, but before the mortgage can be recorded the tax must be paid to the county treasurer, therefore, we believe a notice should also be sent to the treasurer.

Section 5 of the Act provides that where mortgages are made in trust to secure the payment of bonds, and only a partial amount has been advanced at the time the mortgage is offered for record, the tax shall be determined upon the amount actually advanced, and that when further bonds are issued under the same mortgage taxes shall be paid on the same basis. No provision, however, is made to see that this latter provision is complied with. We believe the mortgagor in each mortgage upon which taxes are not paid in full should be required to report annually to the Board of State Tax Commissioners the amount of bonds which have been issued under the provisions of the mortgage.

ACT NO. 95, P. A. 1907.

All railroads now operating in this state under the provisions of the General Railroad Law are assessed by the State Board of Assessors and pay taxes based on the average rate of taxation throughout the state with one exception. There is one road which still operates under a special charter and which has thus far succeeded in avoiding the payment of its just share of taxes. Act No. 95 of the Public Acts of 1907 was intended to enable the state to collect a specific tax on the stock of this railway company, but the Act was declared unconstitutional by the court and should therefore be repealed.

COUNTY EQUALIZATION.

In equalizing the assessments between the several assessment districts in a county, the board of supervisors is required by Section 34 to equalize only upon the value of real estate, and then only by adding to or deducting from such value an amount which will produce relatively an equal and uniform valuation of the real property in the county. We believe much better results will obtain if this Section is amended to permit the equalization on both real estate and personal property, and that it require that the amount added to or deducted from the assessed valuation of any township or city shall be an amount which will produce what is believed to be the true cash value of all property subject to assessment in that district. The practice of equalizing at less than the actual value of the assessable property has proved to be detrimental to the proper enforcement of the tax law. Many assessing officers consider the value fixed by the board of supervisors, or by the State Board of Equalization, to indicate the amount at which the district or county should be assessed, and if each board is required to equalize upon what it believes to be the actual value of the assessable property, each assessor will then have his attention directly called to any undervaluation of property and will be given an incentive. to assess property in compliance with law.

This Section also provides for a review of the equalization by the Board of State Tax Commissioners when any supervisor feels that his township or city has been injured by the equalization, and provides that the Tax Commission may call the Board of Supervisors into special session for the purpose of obtaining information relative to th eequalization. We believe the law should require the Tax Commission to call the board of supervisors into special session for the purpose of hearing any arguments relative to the equalization, and that a notice of such special session be served upon each member of the board of supervisors not less than three days prior to the time set for the meeting. There is a provision in this Section that when a review of an equalization is held by the Tax Commission, the aggregate valuation determined by the board of supervisors shall not be increased. It is the practice of this Board when conducting such a review to first estimate the true cash value of each assessing district, but under the present provision it is necessary to then reduce the value of each township or city a proportionate amount in order that the aggregate shall not exceed that of the board of supervisors. The most valuable feature of an equalization should be that each assessing officer is thereby given an estimate of the amount at which his district should be assessed. We therefore believe this provision of the Section should be stricken out. Such an amendment will go far in assisting to bring about the assessment of property at true cash value, as required by law.

9