REVENUE AND TAXES. 545

mission. Such appeal to the State Tax Commission shall be taken either
(a) within thirty days after the date of the 'action or failure or refusal
to act complained of, or (b) if an address shall have been filed with the
County Commissioners or the Appeal Tax Court by any person or corpora-
tion demanding a hearing as in the next preceding section provided, then
by the person giving such address within thirty days from the date of the
mailing of the notice of the action by the County Commissioners or the
Appeal Tax Court to the person and address so given. No appeal on be-
half of a taxpayer shall be allowed under this section from a failure or
refusal to abate, reduce or reclassify an existing assessment unless applica-
tion in writing for such action shall have been filed by the appellant with
the assessing authority appealed from within the time limited for the filing
of a demand for a hearing by Section 182 of this Article.

259. See notes to sec. 162.

See art. 5, secs. 90-1.

1929, ch. 226, sec. 184.

184. A petition of appeal provided for in the last preceding section
shall set forth that the assessment or classification is illegal, specifying the
ground of alleged illegality, or is erroneous by reason of over-valuation or
under-valuation, or that the assessment is unequal in that it has been made
at a higher proportion of value than other property of the same class, or
said petition may assign any other errors which may exist in the particu-
lar case for which an appeal is allowed, and on account of which petitioner
claims to be injured. A summons, as well as a subpoena duces techum,
shall issue from the State Tax Commission for the defendant named in such
appeal requiring it to produce at the hearing before the Commission the
record of its proceedings as well as all maps, plats, documents and other
papers connected with the record, and the record, or a copy of the record
when properly certified by the signatures of the assessing authority, shall
be evidence before said Commission in the hearing. The State Tax Com-
mission shall have full power to hear, try and determine the matter, and
may require all defendants, their clerks and surveyors, or other agents as
they may deem necessary, to attend and examine them on oath or affirma-
tion and may permit or require all such explanations, amendments and
additions to be made to any of the proceedings, including the petition of
appeal, as it shall determine, so that the case may be properly heard and
determined. The said Commission shall not be bound by the technical
rules of evidence; but at the request of any party and at his expense all
evidence, testimony of facts on which said Commission may act and on
which its decision shall be based shall be reduced to writing and filed among
the records of the Commission relating to said appeal. The said Commis-
sion is empowered to assess anew, classify anew, abate, modify, change
or alter any assessment or classification appealed from, provided that in the
absence of any affirmative evidence to the contrary, or of any error ap-

¹ Evidently a typographical error in act.
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