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References
“Comparison of Revenues, Expenditures, and Debt: 1949–59”,Comptroller's Studies in Local Finance, No. 1, (New York State Department of Audit and Control, 1961).
U. S. Bureau of the Census, “Local Government Finances and Employment in Relation to Population: 1957”,State and Local Government Special Studies, No. 45, 1961.
“1959 Tax Atlas of New York State”,Comptroller's Studies in Local Finance, No. 2, (New York State Department of Audit and Control, 1961).
These are also used in computing county and school district equalization rates.
Although this is an interesting general issue, its importance in the case of industrial property is limited in New York State to one city, Watervliet, where the U.S. Arsenal is exempt but the U.S. Government provides the services which would ordinarily be provided by local government.
John J. Carroll and Seymour Sacks “Local Sources of Local Revenues.”1961 Proceeding of the National Tax Association, pp. 294–311.
New York City was unique in that it had a density of over $200 million per square mile.
In our sample of villages we were able to determine the industrial component of the tax base, although this information has not been processed for all villages.
New York City was excluded because it performs the functions of both city and county. Expenditure and tax data for New York City are not, therefore, comparable with data for other cities.
It should be noted that the levies collected locally may cover capital charges.
For the methodology appropriate to both tax rate and per capita levies see “1959 Tax Atlas of New York State,”op. cit. p. 2.
Seymour Sacks and William F. Hellmuth, Jr.,Financing Government in a Metropolitan Area, New York: Free Press, 1960). Chap. 4, especially pages 118–21.
Cf. Alan K. Campbell, “The Effects of Industrial Location on Revenues and Expenditures of Municipalities” (paper read before the 55th Annual Conference of the Municipal Finance Officers Association. (Seattle, 1961).
The instructions to the local assessors for industrial property are as follows: “Include all industrial and manufacturing establishments, warehouses and wholesale properties, grain elevators, cold storage plants, locker plants, coal yards, oil company bulk plants, sand and gravel pits, and any other property with industrial characteristics. Do not include quarries, mines and oil or gas wells. Also include all mills, saw mills, food mills, etc., junk yards, milk processing plants, cheese factories, dry cleaning plants, laundries, newspaper and printing plants, all storage buildings usually wholesale or manufacturing, bean elevators, grain elevators, any building where material is processed for wholesale or retail trade. [Also Include] wholesale distributors, asphalt and concrete plants.” Thus some properties which are outside of New York State which may be considered personal property are here considered as real property. In addition, the State also classifies forest lands which for our purposes in this case are not important but in another case very important. Finally there is a miscellaneous category which includes specialized property which are highly correlated with commercial properties as we will demonstrate below.
It should be noted that whereas a town is recognizably more suburban the higher its density, in the case of the cities it is more suburban the lower its density. This is confirmed in the results of cities and Towns “A” and “B”.
See Appendix Tables A and B.
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The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the New York State Board of Equalization and Assessment which has made available data regarding the composition of assessmen rolls and has given helpful assistance in the interpretation of technical questions.
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Carroll, J.J., Sacks, S. The property tax base and the pattern of local government expenditures: The influence of industry. Papers of the Regional Science Association 9, 173–189 (1962). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01947627
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01947627