New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-02-16
Communicated.
UNJUST TAXATION.

A bill is now before the Legislature which
provides for the granting and collecting of
licenses, which shows great carelessness in
some of its provisions, or else a deliberate
purpose to oppress the poor and favor the
rich. At the best, the method of raising
revenue by licenses or industrial occupa-
tons is Objectionable, but this particular
measure is most grossly unequal and unjust,
as a few examples will show.
Each keeper of warehouse. cotton or
lumber yard is required to pay 500 annual
license.
Wholesale merchants and importers of
bar stores are to pay the same amount.
Now observe the injustice. a man of
small capital, who keeps a lumber yard in
Some little village, must pay the same yearly
license as the weathett wholesale mer-
chant or importer OF bar stores. One may
have 100000 invested, the other barely
$4,000. yet the latter pays to the State the
same license tax as his more prosperous fel-
low citizen. Again: Billiard saloons with
one table pay $25; with two tables, $50; and
each additional table pays s..
Under this unequal and unjust arrange
ment the man who keeps billiard saloon
with two tables in some remote village must
pay $40 year, while one with ten tables in
the city pays but $50
Fortune tellers and keepers Of cotton
presses are placed on an equality, each pay
ing $3.50 license. Are they considered
,
ouire the same amount OF capital for each
business
But these are not the worst features of the
proposed law. Each eatinghouse, restau-
rant, or refreshment saloon is to pay 800 :;
each hotel for the entertainment of travellers
or transient persons $3.50; but each public
or private clearinghouse for the enter tain
ment of persons By the week, month, or
year pays only S25.
These provisions are grossly unjust. A
widow, or a disabled soldier, who in some
obscure village, or on some lonely cross
road, keeps a wayside inn, where not a
hundred persons stop in year, must pay
the State the same amount as the owner of
the most magnificent hotel in the city,
whose guests are numbered by thousands.
Such law is simply monstrcus. 1t op-
presses the poor and favors the rich; it
taxes men not in proportion to what they
have, but what they have not 1t is dis
grace to our age.
Take another example. A peddler with
a pack must pay for his license ten dollars,
IL l. l. L.,
drawn by one horse or by four, pays twenty.
Then druggist is to pay fifteen dollars
annual license thus we see that a peddler
with one horse actually pays more than is
required from the wealthiest druggist in
the city.
But even this is not the worst. each
mechanic, barber or tailor who is boss or
proprietor of shop pays $40.
Now observe 1t does not matter whether
the mechanic employs one hand or hun
dred; he must pay the same for license, even
if he works alone and employs none-that is,
if he be the boss or proprietor OF the shop.
Again: Every contractor, sub con tractor
and stevedore, 500 A most indefinite and
unjust provision. A contractor may make
his tens of thousands by the labor OF others,
vet only pay $40. And it makes no differ
enee whether he employs a thousand men
or half dozen only, thus making the small
contractor pay as heavy a tax as the
wealthiest. l might go on, and specify
other provisions OF the proposed law equally
unjust, but these examples are enough to
show that the bin needs careful and thor
ough revision before it is passed. Let the
laboring men of the State see to it that tax
alton is fairly and equally laid upon rich
and poor alike, and not permit those who
are already wealthy and prosperous to
evade their just proportion of the burden.