THE USE OF INCOME DATA FOR ASSESSMENT REVALUATION

Abstract

Legislators, governmental administrators, and tax economists face an ever increasing problem in providing local governments with new or amplified sources of muchneeded revenue. It is imperative that existing tax laws be applied so as to produce the maximum consistent with practicality, and it is important that they be amended where necessary to ensure that this be achieved equitably. Although some statutes allow the taxation of all interests in real property, there probably are few practical applications of that principle. Legislation whereby owners and users of business property can be taxed equitably according to the incidence of net income flowing from that property, and whereby the municipality would profit by a levy upon much that now escapes property taxes, seems to be needed. During the past decade an increasing demand has been voiced by citizen agencies in this country that greater weight be given to income-productivity in appraising realty for ad valorem taxation, and many have urged that the British system of assessing directly by rental value be adopted here. A consensus of opinion,1 garnered from many of those especially interested in the subject, disapproved outright adoption of that proposal, but indicated the belief that greater consideration of income-productivity would much improve our assessing technique and tend to prevent the gross inequities produced by the all too common blind application of te brick and mortar " appraising. Progressive assessors also are leaning more toward some recognition of rental and other income criteria, as evidenced in the proceedings of the National Association of Assessing Officers.2 There already have been a few applications of this method, but in most of our large cities practically no attempt is