The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-04-20
FUTURE OF THE INCOME TAX.

10 those OF our readers who are In
terested In the income tax mess and who
want TO secure clear insight into it
with the least expenditure of brain and
time, we commend an article covering the
subject in the current Harpers Weekly.
To our minds that article is better aud
more clearly expressed, and exhausts
the subject in fewer and and more
incisive words than anything printed in
any Of our contemporaries since the
United States Supreme Court, the highest
tribunal in the land and so assumed to
be the highest in the world, told the
people that it could not decide whether
an act of Congress was constitutional or
not.
The writer in Harpers, referring to
the Supreme Courts indecision as "one
of the curiosities of judicial literature"
expresses the opinion that the justices,
in no obscure language, plainly invite
reopening and further argument on the
points still in dispute. That they will
get plenty of such argument before they
are through with it is evident
enough to any one who notes,
however casually, the suits that
are being planned all over the couu-
try to contest the law in about every
important feature that still distin-
guishes it from any other law ever pro.
duced by a Congress of the United
States. The releasing ot the tax on real
estate Is by no means ths end of the
matter. Justice WHITE, who, with
Justice HARLAN, insisted that income
from real property could be taxed, and
who laid down the strange doctrine that
Congress has power to tax anything,
and to an unlimited extent, maintained.
however, that il his colleagues denied
the right to tax real estate they ought
also deny the right to tax personal prop
rerty, that the attempted distinction
between real and personal property is
unsound, and that Justices BROWN and
SHIRAs, who stood with Justices FULLER,
FIELD, GRAY and BREWER OH the real
estate opinion but deserted their four col
leagues in the view that personal prop
erty was likewise exempt, were incon-
sistent and had really not stood by the
decision involved in the majority find
ing Of the court.
The court stood, Chief Justice FULLER
aud Justices FIELD, GRAY and BREWER
of the opinion that the whole law was un-
constitutional, Justices WHITE aud HAIR
Ian that no part of it was unconstitu-
tional, aud Justices BROWN and SHIRAs
Joined with the former four on the
points already familiar and with the
latter two on the balance Of the features.
Justices BROWN and SHIRAs. it may be
supposed, accordingly, are ready to hear
further argument and Chief Justice
FULLER is very ready to have them.
As it stands now, as Harpers Weekly
points out, just bit more expressively
than any other review we have read,
"the decision itself has so complicated
the law and so confused the officers who
are charged with the duty OF admins
tering it, that where there was one ques-
ton before, there are now several ques-
tions or doubts" Observes the Weekly:
THE law exempts from tax the sums ex
pended on the repairs of houses. Now that
the income from houses is not to be taxed.
does the exemption apply In other words,
can the amouAt expended for such repairs
be deducted from income derived from
personal property or personal servicesg
As real property is the basis Of railroads.
can the income Of railroad securities be taxodg
Can income derived from businesses whose
conduct IL dependent on real property be taxedg
These are some Of the questions which the
courts must answer In consequence of this de-
oision. besides the greater questions left unan-
swered by the supreme Court In this decision.
ana which are; 90 Whether the void provis-
ions a. TO rcnts and income from real estate
invalidste the whole act; % whether as TO the
income from personsl property,ss such,the act