Dear Sir,
It was nice to talk to you today about Boone County History. I think there is quite a lot, especially about the northern part of Boone County, that I could learn from you. I look forward to seeing your completed book, or books. Do you have any papers or other material you have compiled that might be instructive for someone such as myself to review? If so I would look them over right away and return the material to you as soon as possible.
In regard to your question about tax equalization, I will be as informative as possible, but I do not (yet) know how the equalization functions, or why it seems to fall on some taxpayers, and not others. There must be some formula as to how this is done, or a policy as to whom it applies, and when. That will have to wait for an answer.
Equalization refers to the process of achieving a uniform rate of valuation, and hence an equitable burden of taxes. This may be between individual taxpayers within a district; or it may refer to a means of equalizing them between districts, which would be counties in Kentucky. The aim is that similar property would be taxed at like values uniformly across the state, not according to local considerations. (Black’s Law Dictionary, s.v. "Equalization") This, of course, cannot ever be achieved in practice, but the attempt is admirable.
In Kentucky equalization applies to counties rather than to individual taxpayers within the county. The Commonwealth in early days received property taxes; the county laid a levy on individuals, never property. The counties today receive part of the property taxes, but even today equalization is between counties. The current statutes state: "The Department of Revenue shall equalize each year the Assessments of the property among the counties. . . . When the property of any county, or any class of property in any county, is not assessed at its fair cash value, such assessment shall be increased or decreased to its fair cash value by fixing the percentage of increase or decrease necessary to effect the equalization." (K.R.S. 133.150)
In the early days the land was divided into first, second, and third rate lands. This seems to have been changed by the equalization law. At least in the 1840 tax book, at which I am looking right now, the lands are not so rated, nor in any later book which I have examined. This is probably because the classification of the various rates was so subjective that many first and second class lands hid under the third class rate. The equalization was to establish the true value of the land instead of classifying all the classes at the same rate.
There are some interesting remarks made on this taxation in the American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1842.
Kentucky. — This State had a revenue from taxation, in 1839, of $250,000 on an assessment of ten cents on $100; by a law of the last session this tax has been increased five cents on the $100. The State has also a revenue of over $40,000 derived from taxes on law process, deeds, seals, &c. (p. 105)The Commercial Review of the South and West, for 1850, edited by J. D. B. de Bow in New Orleans, lists all the revenue in the state for 1845 and 1846. He summarizes this by saying:
The whole value of the above articles, including the effects of the equalization, about 27 millions, was, in 1846, estimated in taxation at $242,388,967. The whole revenue from taxes, $1383,283. The average value of land in the State was estimated at $6.31 per acre. (p. 198)Prof. Arthur Yager in a paper entitled "State and Local Taxation in Kentucky", (1884) writes:
In Kentucky about one-third of all the taxes in the state are levied and collected by the state government. In many rural districts the only kinds of property taxation known are those imposed by the state authorities. The unit of administration for financial, as well as other purposes, is the county. (The Johns Hopkins University Circulars. Baltimore, 1884, p. 130)He goes on to say (in 1884): "There is no state board of equalization, and the most glaring inequalities between different counties and classes of property naturally result." (ibid.) And he adds that the same difficulty is found all over the South.
There was later instituted a Board of Equalization for the state, but it was not very efficient. In the Report of the Special Tax Commission of the State of Kentucky, 1912-14 (Frankfort, 1914) it is stated in regard to the functioning of this body under the heading "Equalization between counties":
The State Board of Equalization then proceeds to "equalize" between counties by adding to or deducting from the value of the property as accessed such percentages as will make the value conform to the true value in money. Whenever they intend to raise a county, they send notice of that intention to the county, and the County Court may send representatives to object. The same procedure is followed in case of a proposed reduction. But this is obviously unimportant. (p. 18)This is all very interesting, and may serve to show what equalization is, but it does not show how it works. We may imagine just what political machinations come into play when a County Court is notified that its valuation is being raised. We can also consider that valuations may be raised for political motives, or to put pressure on certain politicians. In short, we can imagine that the process of equalization may have been worse than the original evil of inequalities between the counties. Kentucky, and most of the rest of the South, with a long tradition of "pauper counties" (the term is actually very old), have never had a very fair system, if that means everyone paying the same rates on the same types of property.
There is a good deal more that can be said on this subject, and I would be interested in any comments you have about the matter. I would be particularly interested in any observations that would serve as evidence for how the equalizations work in practice. I am hoping to find a good description of this somewhere, but actual instances from the tax records are the best way of telling how it worked in practice.
All the best,
James Duvall, M. A.
Annals of Boone County
Boone County, Kentucky
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