Proceedings of the Annual Conference (Volume 8) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: COOPERATION OF THE COUNTY ASSESSORS AND TAX COMMISSION John T. Brown Assessor of Mesa County, Grand Junction, Col. From the very nature of his duties the problems of an assessor are many and varied. The law presumes him to be an expert on the value of all kinds of classes and conditions of property of whatever nature or description. Real estate, both lands and lots, improvements of every character, personal property of all kinds, mines, industries of every description? with respect to the valuation of all these he is expected to qualify as an authority. Ordinarily assessors are just normal human beings possessed of nothing more than the average powers or capabilities of the normal man. Usually this ordinary, normal man is called to fill the expert position just outlined without preparation or knowledge of what is required of him. The work of an assessor's office requires judgment and skill along certain lines which can only be acquired after close application and a long experience in the measure and test of values. Opportunity for this training cannot be found outside of the practical knowledge to be gained by close contact with the work itself, or by relying on the experience, guidance, and cooperation of a central body, having power and authority to prescribe rules, regulations and general methods of determining the relative values of the different classes of property. The assessment of property is an approximation of the relative value of the different forms or classes of property, based on the uniform method of valuation, provided by the statutory provision of the law, and no official has a responsibility placed on his shoulders that calls for a higher order of intelligence, or more discreet and discriminating judgment in approximating this relation of values ...