"The law now sufficiently provides for the recovery of a debt with interest and costs, but furnishes no remedy in case property escapes taxation through even the mistake or wrong of the taxpayer himself. To remedy a defect so obvious and important, I recommend the passage of a law providing that upon the discovery that property subject to taxation has not been assessed, the town in which such property was taxable may recover in an action at law, of such owner or his estate, an amount equal to the tax which would have been assessed upon such property, had the owner thereof reported the same to the Assessors. The enactment of these proposed amendments would, it is believed, largely increase the amount of property assessed, and justly reduce the taxes of the great majority of taxpayers whose only property is continually exposed to the view of the Assessors.

"The apprehension sometimes expressed, that capital will be driven from the State by the rigid enforcement of our laws on taxation ought not to be entertained. If the laws on this subject are unjust they should be altered or repealed; if not, they should be enforced against property, whether as visible as a farm or as easily concealed as a railroad bond or stock certificate.

Other States have adopted the policy of exempting from taxation, under certain conditions, investments of capital in vessels, thus giving in some measure needed encouragement to their maritime commerce. I recommend that you consider the expediency of such policy, that it may, if found advisable, be adopted by you."

The Legislature of 1883 took no action upon the recommendations of the Executive on this subject, and again Governor Waller, in his message to the General Assembly of 1884, called the attention of the members of the Legislature of that year to the defect in the system and made other recommendations, which were acted upon. In his message Governor Waller said:

"I cannot allow the failure of the last General Assembly to act upon the recommendations made regarding taxation, to deter me from again alluding to a defect in the system, that does gross injustice to the honest taxpayers of the State. Under the law, as it is, if taxable property is not returned to Assessors, and they fail to discover it, it absolutely escapes all taxation; for no provision exists for the enforcement of a claim for taxation on property, which has been concealed from the Assessors, or inadvertently omitted from the Grand List of a town. A large amount of property, in this way, is continually evading its part of the · burden of public expense.

"If a statute were enacted authorizing towns, upon the discovery of unassessed property, to demand and collect of the party, who failed to return it, the amount, or double the amount, it would have been liable for, if it had been properly listed, it

would be greatly for the advantage of citizens, who comply with the law, as there can be no doubt it would considerably lessen the rate of taxation, which they have to pay. While I have no hesitation in urging you by prompt legislation to supply this obvious and harmful omission, I think it would be wise to adopt the growing practice of Legislatures, in dealing with subjects of intricacy and detail, and refer our whole scheme of taxation to a carefully composed commission, and await their report, before attempting to remedy its many inequalities or make any material alterations in its methods or rates."

In accordance with the suggestions made in the Governor's message, a resolution was passed by the Legislature of 1884 "authorizing the Governor to appoint a Commission to consider the subject of State Taxation.".

The object for which the Commission was constituted is stated in the resolution above referred to as follows: "To consider and report to the General Assembly a comprehensive plan for providing a revenue for the State, having due regard to all the taxpaying interests of the State, and avoiding as far as practicable, double taxation." (Special Acts of 1884, page 1031). The commission appointed under this resolution, submitted a preliminary report to the General Assembly at its January Session, 1886, the following extracts from which will be of interest, as it goes to show that the incongruities of the system of the present, were of sufficient importance at that time as to warrant an investigation of the facts concerning the subject, by the State itself. At the first meeting of the Commission, held in 1884, it was voted "That the Commission, under the terms of the resolution, and of the Governor's message leading to the resolution of the General Assembly, consider themselves charged with examining the entire system of taxation, now practiced in the State." If taxes payable directly to the State, constituted the entire burden of taxation, to which our people were liable, the problem would be a much simpler one. But it has been the policy of Connecticut to impose most of the duties of government on towns and other municipal corporations; and the heaviest taxes, therefore, must continue to be laid and collected by them. ****

The first defect in our present system which challenges attention, consists in inequality of valuation, and this has been specially referred to us for consideration by your honorable body at the present session. ****

Our statutes require all taxable property to be assessed at the

"fair market value thereof and not its value at a forced or auction sale;" but it is notorious that in no town do the Assessors value real estate at what they think it is fairly worth. On the contrary, they first make the appraisal of its actual value, and then put it in the list at a certain proportion of such appraisal, varying from twenty-five to seventy-five per cent. Similar reductions are made in valuing personal property, though with less uniformity, and so perhaps with more injustice.

This is an abuse of long standing, and it is based, of course, on the fact that as each town pays a State Tax of a fixed percentage on its Grand List, the towns that figure down their Grand List to the lowest point will pay the least to the State.

If there were no such State Tax it would not affect the taxpayers in any town to have their property listed at its full value. The higher the valuation the less would be the tax rate. But as long as the State taxes the towns in the existing way, so long we may expect to find local Assessors violating their duty by systematic undervaluations, on the plea that their town would otherwise be taxed more than others. This has been the result of similar laws, wherever they have been enacted in other States. New York has followed this policy, and its practical working was thus described in the debates of the Constitutional Convention held in 1867-'68:*

"I hold that under our present system, there is no greater manufactory of perjury on the face of the earth. What is the habit throughout the entire length and breadth of the State of New York? Towns are fighting towns, through their Assessors, to get at the lowest possible point the assessment of their real and personal property, for the purpose of going up to the Board of Supervisors, and in the taxation of county charges, to have their particular towns as low as possible in the roll of taxation. [That engenders a necessity on the part of the counties to act in the same way; and you find the counties cutting down their assessment rolls in the equalization of valuation of their property as low as possible,] so that when they come up here to Albany and appear before the State Equalization Boards to divide the State taxation, they shall pay the least amount of tax they possibly can. There is no attempt on the part of the Assessors and Supervisors to get at the honest actual value of the property of the county, but there is an attempt to get it at as low a point as possible, in order to get an advantage over neighboring towns and counties in the operation of dividing the taxes of the County and State."

* A change in the system has since been effected.

↑ Speech of Hon. Thomas G. Alvord.

Similar language is found in the report made in 1884 by the Special Commission, appointed to consider the subject of taxation in West Virginia. "The Commission," the report says, "has examined into the matter, and finds that while in some counties property is assessed at its full market value, yet in others it is rated at half, and in others again at less than half. The reason is this: the several Assessors, whether of land or personalty, knowing that under our present method there is no recognized standard of valuation, which is maintained and enforced throughout the State, have each adopted a standard of his own, and in adopting his standard of valuation, each Assessor has endeavored to bring the property of his own county fully as low as the property of any other county; and, be it observed, each Assessor was unacquainted with the practice in other parts of the State, and merely guessed at the standard of valuation elsewhere. Hence gross, glaring and notorious inequalities exist."

Until 1819 Connecticut taxed real estate, not according to its value, but in proportion to the annual income which, on the average, it was deemed likely to produce. Lands, as distinguished from buildings, were put in the list at a fixed rate, for each kind, prescribed by statute. The best meadow land went into the list at $2.50 an acre, plough land at $1.67, pasture at $1.34, wood lots at 34 cents, etc., not because these sums were deemed to be the value of the lands, but because they were thought to represent the average income they would produce. Under such a system there was little opportunity for evading taxation. The acreage of each farm and the general character of each lot were readily ascertained, and the law then fixed the rate of assessment. * * * *

Among the changes incident to the adoption of our Constitution, was that by which the plan of taxing incomes was replaced in the main by that of taxing property; and the difficulty now under consideration immediately manifested itself. In the Revision of the Statutes in 1821, an effort to meet it was made by a provision (page 449, Sec. 10) constituting the Treasurer and Comptroller a Board of Equalization, with substantially the powers now given them in our General Statutes. As these officers have other important public duties to occupy their time, and are not given authority to visit the different towns for purpose of re-assessment, it is not too much to say, that this provision has accomplished substantially nothing.

In 1843, a committee was appointed by the General Assembly, to inquire into the subject of taxation and report what alterations were necessary. They reported in 1844, in favor of requiring every taxpayer to hand in a list, not simply specifying, but valuing the various items of his real estate, and stating also the value of his taxable personal property (outside of bank stock) at a gross sum. The oath to be required was, that his valuation was just and true. Such lists they proposed to keep open to public inspection, and this they believed sufficient to ensure their correctness. The Board of Equalization had already proved so inefficient that they recommended its abolition. ****

The moment a tax so large as to be felt is so laid as to bear upon one farm or one town more heavily than on another, which is similarly situated, the injustice doubles the burden. An unjust tax will always be resisted or evaded, and under such circumstances inequality is always injustice. An attempt was made in 1866 to render our State Board of Equalization competent to deal with this question by adding to its members one "Commissioner" for each Senatorial District, who was to be paid $3 a day and expenses. It was the duty of each of these Commissioners to go over the Grand List of each town in his district with the first Assessor, and, if necessary, examine for himself the property assessed, "collecting facts which shall enable him to make a report to the Board of Equalization constituted by this Act, of the relative value of the same kind of property in the different towns." (Public Acts of 1866, page 78.)

The next year this Act was replaced by another (Public Acts of 1867, page 130), which required each of the Commissioners of Equalization to examine, with one of the Selectmen, in each town, "sufficient number of homesteads known as village property, and not less than ten farms situate in different localities in such towns, together with enough of other taxable property, to ascertain the average actual cash value thereof," and then, on comparing his valuations thus made with those of the Assessors, to "prepare a table showing the actual, as compared with the assessed value of the different kinds of taxable property in each town, and report the same in tabular form to the Comptroller." The State Board of Equalization was also reconstituted by dropping the District Commissioners and adding the Commissioner of the School Fund.

At the same session, a special Commission was created to take