The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1886-03-20
How Taxes Absorb incomes.
From the Baltimore Sun.

From the Baltimore Sun.
The federal government collects by taxa
ton revenue Of $500, 00o, 900 in round num-
beers. The taxes it levies are all indirect and
no one knows Just when he is paying them.
At the present time, twenty years after the
war war taxes are still collected on many
things of daily consumption and which enter
into the cost of every ones daily living. Yet
there are now pending in Congress, and with
more or less chances of passing, variety OF
measures which if successful will necessltate
either an increase of taxation or an addition
to the public debt. The modest request OF
Captain Eads and his friends that the United
States shall endorse some $37 900 600 OF the
bopds of his company to build ship railway
across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec has re-
ceived the approval of the committee of the
House of Representatives to whom it was re-
ferred. The Blair bill, calling for an expen-
diture of SIT 900, 900, and paving the way for
the ultimate assumption by the federal gov
eminent of the entire cost of public education,
and that, too, of an education conducted in
all probability on a much more extravagant
and much less efficient system than at present,
has passed the Senate by vote of three to
one. The bill to repeal the limitation clause
of the arrears OF pension act IS being pressed
with the greatest ardor and determination by
the same kind and manner of influences which
have heretofore so often demonstrated their
power in securing the enactment OF all sorts
of unnecessary, inexpedient and costly PEN
sion bills. If their efforts should again be
successful the commissioner of pensions esti-
mates the cost to the treasury at about SZOU,-
000,0 900. There will as usual be the annual
appropriations for rivers and harbors and for
public buildings And as usual large por.
ton of the money appropriated by them will
serve no other purpose than to increase or
restore the popularity of the members whose
districts gets the largest part of the divide.
This lavish expenditure is only possible be-
cause the people do not realize what each in
dividual is compelled to pay for it. Most
people act as if they supposed that either
federal taxation did not take money out OF the
pockets of the citizens, or that it was SO light
that it might be indefinitely increased without
ANYBODY being appreciably the worse off. Of
course no one doubts that the people in the
end pay the indirect taxes as well as the direct,
however many there may be who seem to
habitually lose sight of this simple axiom.
But there is reason to believe that there is
very general ignorance as to how heavy fed
eral taxation really is. The best way to lind
out its actual weight is to find out how great
an annual levy would have to be made upon
all the property of the country to raise the
annual revenues of the United States by direct
taxation, on the suppostion that the consti-
tuition allowed Congress to impose direct
tax upon all the assessed property of the
country without respect to the population OF
the different States. In 1880 the tenth cen
sus reports that the total assessed value OF all
the property in the country assessed for the
purpose of taxation was in round numbers
ST., 1000, 900, 900. The great business boom
was then at its height, and there has in all
probability been very little increase in assessed
value since. To raise $500, 000, 600 by direct
tax upon the basis of 1880 would require
levy of S1.76 on every 500 of assessed valua-
ton. That is about the same as the aggre-
gate levy in Baltimore for both State and city
purposes. Such rate of taxation as this
instead of being light, is grievously heavy.
1t matters not that the individual taxpayer
does not know that he feels the tax it is
pressing with none the less force upon the
wealth, the trade and the industry of the
country. Instead of schemes to add to the
public expenditures, Congress should be en-
gagged in efforts to reduce the federal taxes.
To take our city for illustration, if all the
property in it belonged to the public, and was
invested at its assessed value for the public,
the revenues woald be no greater than they
now are. For it will be seen that for every
500 assessed valuation there is annually paid
for the support of federal, State and city gov
ernments $3.50, which represents about the
average safe income from investments of cap
ital