The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1893-02-04
TAX REFORM DEPARTMENT,

questions:
l. Shall the mortgage pay tax
70 the extent of his interest and the
owner OF real estate be exempt to thai
extent? or, if not,
ohould money loaned on real es,
tate in New Hampshire be exempt from
taxation?
3. Should the tax on deposits in saw.
ing banks be reduced, as recommended
by the bank commissioners; or, if not,
4. Should the laws relating 20 taxa.
ton be SO strengthened that other
money at interest shall bear its share
OF the burden of taxation equally with
that in savings banks?
D. Would uniform tax of per cent
on all money at interest tend to equal
ize TIE burdens of taxation?
U. Should the state levy a direct in
come tax?
For various reasons there is good
deal OF dissatisfaction with our tax
laws among the farmers of the state.
These laws are substantially the same
and OF course equitable as they have
been for twenty years or more, but the
farmers who have found little fault
with them until recently are growing
FESTIVE under them, not so much be-
Cause they are abstractly unfair as be-
cause the decline, and in many cases
disappearance, of the profits of the
farm makes it very difficult for agricul-
turists to pay their assessments. An
other reason appears in the growing be-
lief that residents of cities and villages
get more in return for their taxes than
the people of sparsely-settled country
districts. In more definite terms, it is
not SO much because thousand-dollar
YARN is taxed more than thousand
dollar city house as it is that the
farmer does not get the money to paw
his taxes as easily as the mechanic or
mill operative, and that after he has
paid them he does not have as good
schools, roads or other things which are
bought with the collections of the tax
gathercr But, be that as it may, the
majority of farmers feel that the tax
laws should be amended and the pro-
posed discussion in the oranges is for
the purpose of bringing out some wav
to amend them for the better, or at least |
so as to make the farmers public bur-
dens less than they are now AS will |
be seen, all the questions proposed re-
late to the taxation of money at inter
est, including that deposited in savings
banks, and in considering that subject
the following extract from an article in
the Manufacturer" from the pen of
Prof. Robert Ellis Thompson, will be
found interesting and perhaps helpful:
I'm considering what kind of prop
erty shall bear the burden of taxation,
1t Is safe to say that it should be laid
upon real or fixed property rather than
on movables; that it should fall on priv
LEGGED corporations rather than on
those which receive from the state little
more than it accords to all its people
and their interests; and that large
part OF the taxes should be collected in
the shape of royalties on the mineral
wealth extracted from the soil of the
state for the benefit of all parts of our
country, and even of foreign countries. {
Taxation of real or fixed property in
preference to movable property AID
capital has the sanction of every class
OF economists, not the least notable of
It's advocates being Mr.. Henry c. Carey, G
our great Pennsylvania authority. In 1
his view, the English system of finance.
which lays the burden of government l
e1leny upon movable property, is one of I
the worst features of her administrative S
policy, and one in which she is far ex- S
celled by France. In fact, the progress r
OF society is away from the taxation t
Oh movables to that of fixed S
property; but in England that progress t
has been arrested by the body of land v
owners who got control of legislation
In 1861 and relieved the land of England a
OF feudal duties and fiscal burdens, at r
The same time shifting the latter to ex- v
cises. Thus English taxation tends to fl
check the growth of that movable capt. il
tai whose increase is the chief means of 3
\ general diffusion of all well-beinp fl
through all classes 1t tends to the ac- Il
of land in the hands of the y
lew, and to make the poor poorer, bv ri
imposing the public burdens without W
my reference to ability to bear them. d
'Such taxation of movable property t,
'lso tends to check the interchange of in
and to diminish the share of 9.
hem that falls to each person in the COM OF
nunity. 1t discourages the formation 81
# those centers of varied industry II
which bring the highest benefit to the er
armer, relieving him of the heavy tax m
# transportation in the matter of get ia
ing his crop to the consumer. 1t pre- m
ents the approximation of the manu- ar
acturer to the producer of food and of eli
aw materials which would bring the
rice of these nearer to that of the ar
product 1t finds its last al
nd worst illustration in the tax levied is
y Spain upon every exchange made ne
7ithin the kingdom-a tax which goes
ar to explain the prostration of the es
lchest and strongest of European mon es
rchies into the Spain of our days" TO
This theory that taxation should be ru