DESCRIPTION: These volumes record the taxes paid on assessments of real and personal property in Salt Lake County. The property may be owned by individuals or businesses. The county assessor assessed the property value, and beginning in 1854 the county court (later known as the county commission) examined and corrected any assessments before turning the process over to the county collector to collect the moneys. The county collector collected taxes levied by the territory, county, school districts (beginning 1887), and cities (beginning 1893). Every volume records the property owner's name and rough property location. In addition there are columns to record the total value of property, the amount of each category of taxes (county, territorial, school, etc.), total value of taxes, amount paid, usually date paid, and name of payer. Initially the volumes were known in the law as "tax lists" or "abstract rolls." Beginning in 1880, this payment data was placed in the same volume as a copy of the original assessment data showing the quantity and value of real estate and improvements, livestock, and other personal property ranging from household furniture and tools to merchandise, stock, bonds, and bullion. Any abatements or remittances authorized by the county board of equalization also are shown. The term "abstract roll" was then replaced by the term "duplicate assessment roll" or "corrected assessment roll."
District school taxes may appear in separate volumes or simply as a separate column of taxation within a volume. District school taxes, county tax, territorial tax, county school tax, territorial school tax, etc. were all calculated as a fraction of the same assessed values. Other special categories may be grouped separately, rather than appearing within their geographic district, usually toward the rear or front of a volume. Such categories include merchants in the early volumes, railroads from 1879 on, telephone and telegraph assessments beginning in 1884, and bank shareholders from 1880 on. Railroads and telephone and telegraph assessments were based primarily on the amount of rail or line through the county. After 1892 these were assessed by the territory with a portion allocated to the county; that portion was required to be recorded in the county assessor's books. At the back of the volumes, there are frequently appendices for assessments missed or lacking sufficient entry space earlier.
In 1896 the law changed which resulted in a change of procedures in 1898 and the end of this series. The collector's office was abolished and the initial roll created by the assessor was passed from the assessor to the county commission serving as a board of equalization to the treasurer; separate, duplicate copies were no longer created.
RESEARCH NOTE: The geographical arrangement can be confusing. The geographical blocks may be recorded as wards, school districts, or plat and block or section, township, and range. Transitions in record keeping may also be confusing; for example, in 1892 school district 66 follows school district 29 because both were in the Sugarhouse Ward.
Initially, entries are grouped by ward. District school taxes, in separate volumes, are by school district, but as school districts correspond directly to ward, the distinction usually is minor. In 1893, rather than wards, the legal property description is given. For the most part, these move alphabetically through the plats in the Salt Lake City Survey, thereunder numerically through the blocks in each plat. The 5 Acre Big Field Survey plats, again alphabetically, follow the Salt Lake City Survey plats. Section, township, and range follow the 5 Acre Big Field Survey plats. All these surveys are implicitly within the Salt Lake City School District, although outside of the recapitulations, this fact was rarely stated. Thus starting explicitly with School District 21 rather than a school district one, for outlying areas, makes more sense than it may initially appear.
RELATED RECORDS: Series 18188, ASSESSMENT ROLLS, shows the initial step in the taxation process, recording the assessor's valuations. In 1853, the assessor/collector was one office so the tax payments for that year were recorded in series 18188. Series 19076, PROPERTY TAX COLLECTIONS shows summaries of delayed collections from 1875-1879. Records at the Salt Lake County Archives show property tax assessments and collections after 1898. Salt Lake City ASSESSMENT ROLLS, for city taxes--county and territorial taxes on property within the city are in this series (18189) from the beginning--until 1893 may be found in series 4922.
FINDING AIDS: The recapitulations in the volumes from the 1870s on often may be used as a table of contents for the year. The wards (numbered or named), plats or sections, school districts, and categories (railroads, telephone/telegraph, etc.) appear in the same order in the recapitulations as they do in the volumes; sometimes the page number on which the ward or category starts also is recorded. Series 4399, SUBDIVISION INDEXES, has an index which gives legal locations for many named subdivisions which in turn can be used to find assessments in these volumes.