Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1892-06-22
GRADUATED INCOME TAX.

One of the Most Important of the Peo-
pies Demands-rt Should BE Fully Dis
oussed.
A tax on personal property and inn
provements is in the nature Of fine on
industry and that class of enterprise
which aims to promote the betterment
of the human race and lift civilization
to a higher plane. But a. this is the sys-
tenn OF taxation personal property taxi
which Is at present, always has been
and Is likely TO be In vogue for some
time to come, income should be includ-
ed, for of all species Of personal proper
ty income In the best able to bear taxa
ton without distressing owners
The tax on much personal property
can be shifted from the party who pays
the tax to the consumer; notably In the
case of merchants where the consu mer
has the tax to pay along with other ex-
penses which are added to the price of
the goods he buys.
The tax on incomes Is q tax which the
party paying cannot shift onto others.
The receiver Of income does not pass
it over to another person, and any tax
coming out of it goes direct to the state.
The beneficiary of income is better
able to pay a tax on that species of
property than on any other, and pays
the tax without being distressed there
by, because such tax comes out of sur
plus fund that he can afford to have
drawn upon. Tax on any other species
of personal property always works hard
ship.
A graduated income tax takes from
the owners of superhuous wealth and
is not felt.
Say we start at an income Of $1,000
and exempt all below that amount.
Any party who has s5, 900 year of un-
taxed revenue to support family on Is
in no danger of suffering for want of
means, and really would not feel tax
on sums above that amount.
The persons who are compelled to
subsist whole family on $500 or less a
year. pay the larger portion of the taxes
for the support Of government, and 1t
Is only fair that those who roll in
wealth and rake in of this worlds goods
over $4,000 annually should yield por-
ton of this surplus wealth to aid their
less fortunate fellow beings, by tighten
ing the taxes taken out of the fund
which supplies their daily bread
We should not only tax natural per-
sons incomes by graduated scale
which exacted . higher percentage as
their accumulations increased, reaching
up toward the million point. but also
every artinctai person created by the
state, which embraces every corpora
tion-railroad companies, telegraph
companies, manufacturing corpora
tions, trusts, syndicates, banking cor
porations, etc. Nor should the incomes
of these concerns, these artificial per-
sons, be first divided and apportioned
among the several companies of which
the combines are composed, but tax the
revenue, the net income, of the great
octopus, allowing but one exemption
| The law creating the income tax to
support the war allowed the tax on In
comes derived from stocks, dividends,
etc, to be exempted In the hands Of the
shareholders, which was manifestly un-
just. The artificial persons income
should be taxed without regard TO its
future distributions, and the natural
persons income without regard to what
source derived from
The Jay Goulds, Russell Sages,
Vanderbilts Astors, Rocl<efelers, ct.
al, should not only b taxed individual
| " on their immense incomes, bat the
artificial persons they make use of
to rob the public-the great corpora
tions which thev oonfrol-6hou1d