St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-08-21
EVADNG TAXATION.

evade paying the taxes levied
on imports. It is an old
story, told wherever a government
yet maintains the revenue raising
methods of the Moors of Tarifa. The
snuggler used to be a numerous
feature in the trade of England in
the days when the coast guard
c1rcled the island to catch the enter
prlsing navigator who was bringing
IN surreptitiously the goods most
highly taxed, to make the handsome
profit there was in cheating the
revenue. Long ago, before Canada
joined the protectionists, the SNUG
gler was very much in evidence
along our northern border, and drove
a profitable trade across the lakes.
The printed narrative of SiIas Bur-
roughs, one of the most daring and
skillful Of his class, was a book of
adventure that charmed the bows
fifty years ago.
A queer feature of this tax dodg-
ing is that it is INDUCED in by all
classes, regardless of their convic-
tons as to the merits or dement's of
the system. Henry George tells, in
one Of his books, how, on a railway
trip, after a hot discussion with
some gentlemen who maintained the
imperative need of a protective tar
III, they fell 10 telling their expert
ences in running the blockade of the
customs officers and getting in dutia-
BILE goods without paying the tax.
a Republican member of our state
legislature was caught by revenue
officer smuggling in some costly
robes from Manitoba a few wears
ago. One can understand that a free
trader, and even a mild revenue
only Democrat, might take pos
tive pleasure in preventing
Uncle Sam from levying trib-
ute on the things he had
bought with his earnings. But that
good, staunch protectionfst could
shatter his convictions so ruthlessly
is a surprising revelation of the
frailty of such convictions when per-
sonal interest stands in the breach.
There is a difference between the
smuggling of goods and the common
evasion Of taxation levied directly
on property that is fundamental,
and rests in an inherent sense of
justice universal among men. The
effort to tax all property under the
direct system is due to the general
concession that property is the
proper burden-bearer; and that, as
long as it is fairly distributed, there
is no room for objection The impost
is not based primarily on property,
but on consumption; on the things
people wear and use, either as nee
essaries or as luXuries. The tax
falls only on the article imported.
and the owner perceives at once the
apparent injustice of making him
pay a tax on the thing he brings
home with him, while the owners of
the same domestic article pay moth
ing. There is an inequality of bur-
den-bearing here that offends his
sense of justice and reconciles his
conscience to the evasion of the tax.
But there are other smugglers than
those who run the gauntlet of our
revenue officers. There is the land
smuggler as we'll as the maritime
one. The whole power of the state
is as ineffective to eradicate the
former as are the revenue laws to
obliterate the latter. Something in
common there is between them. The
lower motive Of gain may influence
them both, and, in diverse ways.
the sense of injustice actuates them.
But in one case the sense is posi-
tive; in the other merely neg
ative. The one feels that there
is an injustice in making him pay
a tax on things exempt in the pos
session of others; while the other
merely fears that, if he lists his
property fully and honestly, he viii
have to bear a larger share of the
burdens because of those who with
hold their property from the lists.
How extensive is this evasion every
one knows more or less acclir-
ately. In 1890 there was listed
for taxation 20 cents worth of per-
sonal property for each one dollar
of real estate, including improve
ments, in the United States. That
this is at all a correct proportion
Of the values of these two classes of
the elusiveness of personal property
when the assessor is making his
rounds will believe. While their
true relations cannot be ascertained,
it is not an unwarranted assumption
that the values are nearly, if not
quite, equal, especially in those older
regions of the country to which the
newer parts have been so long tribu-
tary. But the actual proportion is
imnateria1. The common impression
that personal property largely evades
taxation has its foundation in fact
even if it cannot set limits to the
amount, The larger question foS the
consideration. of a. tax-paying public
is whether the two systems produce
fruits that warrant their continu-
ance. What with the evasions at the