The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1894-09-07
THE INCOME TAN,

The expense of running this govern
ment has become so great that it is
necessary to raise vast sum of mon
ey annually to meet its wants. No
matter who is responsible for this
great outlay of money, we have to
meet it as a condition facing us and
provide for it. 1t is also unfortunate
ly probable that it will never be less.
Our pension roll, army and navy lists
and our necessities for public improve
ment are annually increasing in size
Nearly thirty years after the close of
the war our annual pension payments
amount to about $3.50, 200, 900, but it
is to be hoped that this item has at
last reached its maximum, and unless
wild pension laws should be passed
hereafter, we may look for gradual
decrease of this stupendous outlay
But as the country expands other ex-
penses will doubtless take its place
All the money expended by the gov
eminent must be raised by taxation
of some form or other and no matter
how laid taxes are necessarily unpo-
pular. Most persons would undoubt-
eddy rather not be taxed at all, but
each person has no objection to the
other fellow being taxed, no matter
now heavily. In our State, county
and municipal affairs taxes are gener-
ally laid on wealth and property, but
the general government collects the
revenue from all the people. Iii no
more than right that every citizen
Should pay something toward the sup
port of the government, but should not
this tremendous expense be met in
part by the wealth of the country?
On poor men with large families tariff
taxes fall with great severity. Our
farmers and workingmen who are
struggling with the depression of hard
times, and who with all their efforts
to keep up sometimes find themselves
drifting backward, think they have
been paying too large percentage of
cluuCu-dDuS6u
Congress which has just adjourned
seemed to think so too, and to relieve
in part this class of our people from
their too heavy burden, they attach
ed the income tax to the new tariff
bill. This part of the law has, as
might have been expected, met with
bitter opposition from the capitalists
and trusts of the country. The tariff
on imports is to the wealthy classes a
matter of small Importance as a mil
lionaire frequently pays no more of
this tax than many a poor man who
is not worth a dollar, but when a rich
man has to pay a tax from which
Il poor man is exempt he is
prompt to squeal. These capitalists
have been enjoying the great wealth
that the labor of thousands has pro-
duced for them but they seem to think
it most unfair and most unjust that
they should be called upon to pay a
small fraction of their annual incomes
toward the support of the government
which protects their property and en-
ables them, year after year, to add to
their already vast accumulations. 1t
certainly seems that an income tax
can be more readily collected and more
easily spared by the one who has to
pay it than any other source of re-
venue. In this case there is no tax
where there is no money with which
to pay it. With a small taxable in
come the tax is small, and with large
one the means are at hand and there
is no oppression. Certainly no other
tax could be invented that could be SO
easily paid.