The National tribune., 1895-05-23
THE END OF THE INCOME TAX.

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of the United States has finally passed
on the Income Tax and swept it en-
tirely away. Not vestige stood the
test of legal adjudication. So topples
another of the achievements of the in
comparably fatuous and wicked SD
Congress. Now, all that is left of that
odious body's work are free wool, slaugh-
tered focks, impoverished farmers, pros
trated industries, constantly-increasing
deficit in the National Treasury, harried
veterans, and three years of misery to
everybody in the country, at a money
cost much greater than that Of the en-
tire rebellion.
In one way we are sorry for the de-
cision. The income tax is a favorite
theme for demagogs who want to stir up
the unthinking or the shallow-thinking.
1t is so easy to make an appeal against
the rich that the temptation is always If
resistible to any fellow with No. 3 brains
and No. 10 lungs. That the very rich
do not pay anything like their share of
the taxes is unfortunately too true. The
same is equally too true Of the very
poor. Nearly all the taxes are paid by
the industrious and thrifty middle classes
the people who have made small ac-
cumulations. 1t is these who suffer
mainly from the bungling of the char
latans who get up quack nostrums in
tax legislation.
Ofthis character was the income tax
Whatever may be said of income tax as
a theory, in practice it always has been,
and always will be, wretched failure.
1t is inevitably ga tax on conscience"
Honest men will pay it, and dishonest
men evade it. There is no way of pre-
venting this. No man can really de-
termine what another mans income is.
Least of all can Government officer.
IF men can, as men VIGOROUSLY do every
where, evade taxes on land and personal
property, which is in sight of the officers
of the law, what hope can there be for
collecting a tax ON such an indefinite, |
intangible thing as an income2
We are rather sorry for the Supreme
Courts decision, because we wanted the
scheme given a fair trial, to satisfy those
who have been clamoring for it, and to
further demonstrate the folly of its
champions. A year or two of its opera
ton would have SO covered everybody
with it with odium, that Con-
gress would have done, as the British
Parliament once did with an income tax,
repealed the law by acclamation, and
ordered every book and paper connected
with it to be burned, to destroy all
memory of it. The operation of the In
come Tax here had already demonstrated
that a large portion of it would be paid
by savings banks and other forms of the
peoples accommodations, while the very
rich would be evading it as successfully
as they do other taxes.
The first element in any tax law is
collectability. That law is a good one
which collects the most and admits of
the least evasion. The Income Tax
would have punished honest men and
rewarded dishonest ones; for it could
not have collected from those who did
not want to pay.
The fairest, most equitable taxation
is that upon imports. This is certain of
it collects very largely from
Iuxuries and superfuities, and its imposi-
ton gives protection to our own indus
.ries, keeps money in the country, and
gives employment to our own people.
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BEHOLD how great a matter small
fire kindleth. Norway and Sweden are
two little countries of about the popula-
ion of two of our States. Norway has
100000 people, or about as many as
Kentucky or Georgia. Sweden has
i,6S2,769, or a few more than Ohio or
Illinois. The two peoples are of the
same race, speak what is essentially the
same language, and have the same re-
igion-Lutheran. They have as nearly
4 community of interests rs two peoples
,oounpIpp on ico1ofa6 peninsuIa CON |