The Auditor General's Answer

Auditor General Powers, for the state of Michigan, has made answer to the bill of complaint of the various railroad companies, filed in the United States court for the western district of Michigan, upon which bill an injunction was issued restraining the auditor general from collecting taxes levied against the railroads in excess of what they had paid under the specific law. 

The auditor general denies that the railroads were not given plenty of notice of the change of assessment or the second determination of the average rate, after the decision of the supreme court in the Detroit board of education case, and charges that none of the complainants appeared or were in any way represented at such proceeding. He charges farther that if any undervaluation of property of the state for assessment purposes under the ad valorem law exists or existed in 1902, it is due to the premeditated, collusive or fraudulent action on the part of the officers making the assessment or the result of agreement or concurrent action of such officers. 

He denies that the ad valorem act of 1901 applies a different tax rate to railroad property from that applied to other property of same value, situated in the same place, subject to the same political jurisdiction and existing under the same circumstances. 

Relative to the charge that in assessing railroad property debts of the corporation were not deducted, the auditor general shows that although given every opportunity to appear before the state board of assessors acting as a board of review upon assessments of railroad property, none of the complainant companies appeared to ask that their debts be deducted from the credits, nor did any company raise any objection to its assessments on the ground that its debts were not deducted from its credits. 

The answer, in all other details of the bill of complaint of the railroads, covers each and ever specification. In fact the auditor general appears to have put up a strong case for the state in asking that the permanent injunction asked for by the confederated railroads be denied.