(a) Each incorporated company, banking institution and national banking association, foreign or domestic, having its principal office or chief place of business in this state, owning property subject to taxation in this state, except railroad, telegraph and express companies, telephone companies, pipeline, car line companies and other public utility companies, shall annually, between the assessment date and September 1, make a written report, verified by the oath of the president or chief accounting officer, to the assessor of the county in which its principal office or chief place of business is situated or in which property subject to taxation in this state is located if the corporation does not have a principal office or chief place of business in this state, showing the following items: (1) The quantity, location and fair market value of all of its real estate, and tax district or districts in which it is located; and (2) the kinds, quantity and fair market value of all its tangible personal property in each tax district in which it is located.
(b) The oath required for this section shall be substantially as follows:
State of West Virginia, County................., ss:
I,...................., president (treasurer or manager) of (here insert name of corporation), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that the foregoing is, to the best of my knowledge and judgment, true in all respects; that it contains a statement of all the real estate and tangible personal property that the value affixed to such property is, in my opinion, its value, by which I mean the price at which it would sell if voluntarily offered for sale on such terms as are usually employed in selling such property, and not the price which might be realized at a forced or auction sale; and said corporation has not, to my knowledge, during the sixty-day period immediately prior to the assessment date converted any of its assets into nontaxable securities or notes or other evidence of indebtedness for the purposes of evading the assessment of taxes thereon; so help me, God.
The officer administering the oath shall append thereto the following certificate:
Subscribed and sworn to before me by.................... this the.......... day of................., 20......