Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/509

 SOME INEQUALITIES IN LAND TAXATION.

THE RESULTS OF AN INVESTIGATION BY THE MINNESOTA BUREAU OF LABOR.

The Minnesota Bureau of Labor has just completed a study of land taxation in that state. The statistical force of the bureau has been engaged upon this investigation the greater por- tion of the time for the past three years. The data employed are the sales of realty by warranty deeds and by mortgage fore- closures. A comparison is made between the amounts stated in these instruments of sales as the consideration for transfer and the equalized assessed value of the lands sold. The report includes the tabulation of 26,881 sales of realty by warranty deed in the eighty-one counties of the state in 1895, ^"<^ 8,216 in fifteen counties in 1896. The amount of these sales, as stated in the deeds, was, for 1895, $50,380,017, and for 1896, 816,791,71 5. There were also tabulated in the same investigation 5,518 sales of realty by mortgage foreclosures in the eighty -one counties of the state in 1895, and 2,534 foreclosures in three counties in 1896. The amount of these sheriff certificates, in 1895, was $10,951,- 080, and for 1896, $7,731,476. The investigation thus tabulated 43,049 distinct sales of realty of a recorded consideration of transfer of $85,854,288.

The instruments tabulated constituted, however, only about two-thirds of those of record which were examined with a view of tabulation. The other third were rejected because, for one reason or other, they showed on their face that the stated con- sideration was probably not the true value of the land sold. The investigation, therefore, involved a consideration of over 60,000 recorded sales of realty.

The bureau investigated the subject of the reliability of such data as a measure of the relative taxation of different classes of property and of the different sections of the state. It points out in its forthcoming report the limitations that surround the use of

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