The tax assessor must make and enter in an assessment book, suitably ruled and substantially bound, in forms as prescribed by the Department of Revenue, a condensed statement of all assessments made during each tax year, showing in separate columns the name of the owner, a description of the real estate and improvements thereon, the assessed value thereof and the value of the personal property assessed for taxation; and the assessor shall compute and enter opposite the name of each taxpayer the aggregate amount of state, county, and special taxes with which such taxpayer is charged, except as may otherwise be provided herein. When the hearing of objection to assessments has been completed as herein provided, the tax assessor shall complete the said book by making the proper entries therein, and foot up at the bottom of each page the aggregate of all such taxes. When appeals have been taken to the circuit court, this fact must be stated.

In counties where assessors are now allowed by law to use assessment lists in lieu of a book of assessments, the assessor shall not be required to prepare a book of assessments as provided for in this section, but in lieu thereof shall be required to arrange in alphabetical order original assessment lists and cause the same to be permanently bound, and such assessment lists, when bound, shall constitute the book of assessments as herein provided, and the certificate of the Department of Revenue or the agent or assistant thereof provided for in Section 40-7-34, shall be entered upon each of said bound volumes of assessments. Such assessment lists when bound shall be preserved permanently as a matter of record. In making the tax collectors' abstracts, such abstracts shall be made directly from the assessment lists. The tax assessor in counties having a population of not less than 225,000 nor more than 400,000 inhabitants, according to the last or any subsequent federal decennial census, shall not be required to compute and enter opposite the name of each taxpayer the aggregate amount of state, county, and special taxes with which such taxpayer is charged.