The Opelousas courier., 1894-12-01
ISSUES

--
That Must He Settled i'll the Near Future
INEQUALITIES of Taxation---The Income
Tax and Its Relation to Production.
The question of taxation is one that
nearly concerns every citizen. We
sometimes hear the thoughtless res
mark, He need not trouble himself
about taxes. as he does not pay any"
This is a mistake, the man who is SO
poor that he owns no taxable property
is usually the most heavily taxed mem
Der of the community, in proportion to
his ability to pay. He pays indirectly
upon all that he consumes, while the
bulk of all taxes comes from his labor
and hat of others similarly situated.
The income tax, now ~agitating the
rich, meets with almost universal oppo-
sition from that class. who know that
they will be required to contribute a
portion of their unnecessary surplus to
the support Of the government and to
the relief of the overburdened classes
who have no income beyond a bare sub.
sistence, and no means of escape from
the onerous burdens they bear. No ar
gument appeals so strongly to the
average man as se~lf-interest.
1t is estimated that 3d. 600 persons
heye legal possession of one-half of the
real and personal property in the Unit
cd States and pay fifteen per cent. of
the taxes. while IS. 600, 600 or more own
the other half and pay e%ighty-fve per
cent. of the taxes. Allow the rule of
self-interest, which almost universally
prevails in parties, to settle this ques-
ton by popular vote, and an honest OBJ.
server can readily forecast the result.
About all that could be said against
this position is that it is suggested and
biased by self-interest.
All convictions. and consequently all
l~egislations, are based upon the idea OF
self-interest, and in a government of
majority rule the will of the G5. 600. 600
must be enacted into law as against
the will of the 5000. The Go, 200. 900
include the entire producing class: the
10000 are composed principally of the
financiers. who never produced a dollar
by honest labor in their lives. but by
the Use of accumulated wealth have
procured legislation that enables them,
through their art of financiering, to
appropriate all the proceeds of labor
above the pare subsistence of the Ia
borer-suf,icient for him to exist
upon and reproduce his kind.
Property. not poverty, should be
made to pay the expenses of the gov
eminent that protects it. Give us an
economic system that will leave the
wealth of the country in the posses
sion of its creators and they will not
complain at paying the expenses of
that system: but while they labor con-
stantly and economic rigidly only to
see the proceeds of that labor and
economy pass irreclaimably into the
possession of monopolies, combines and
trusts. they would be dumb. driven
cattle were they content. under such
laws.
The stereotyped argument of those
who oppose an income tax is that it is
inquisitorial-that it prizes into a mans
private affairs and requires him to ex-
pose them to the world: or, in other
words, it brings out the fact that
the assessor places upon the tax
list but a small part of these
possessions. 1t is true that all taxation
is inquisitorial except when evaded by
means of perjury or bribery. The mar
who. after years of hard labor and fru-
gality, with the aid of a building assoc
citation, has secured a humble shelter
FOR his wife and children, must submit
to making oath to the value of his little
belongings, and if the assessor is dis
posed to question his estimate, the as
SCISSOR is authorized by law to invade
the bedroom and kitchen and reap
praise the cradle and the cook-stove.
while the man with millions in his pos
session gives to the assessor in round
numbers S25, 600 or $50, 900 as the notion
takes him, and is not even asked to
make oath to his self-evident false
statement.
The assumption that incomes should
pay all taxes is not untenable. Labor
produced the capital that made in
comes possible. That it has changed
ownership by passing into the posses
sion of the man with an income should
not relieve it of the duties it owes to
the power that protects itr-Economist,
in the Covington, KY, Extra.
Ut seems to the editor that it would
be better to tax the monopolies direct.
-Ed.)
Taxes Play Their Part.
81 D., ~. .,,n.o, --.1.o, xu-.