The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-02-21

A second matter for your most seri- ous consideration is this:
 Life Insurance Ought Not to be Taxed
 at All.
 Taxation ought to bear on the pos session and use of property and not upon the loss of property or upon the means by which such losses are dis tributed
 The only moral and humane theory of taxation is the collection of only such moneys as are necessary for the proper and legitimate expenditures of the state, from such sources, that is, from such persons owning such prop critics, as ought to bear those expendi- lures and in the proportion in which they ought to bear them.
 Under such a theory, no one would suggest tax upon peoples losses. These could be regarded neither as the proper subject matter of taxation, nor as a humane basis of the distribution of tax burdens.
 To illustrate:
 No one would suggest that because mans house, on which he has been paying taxes, has been burned, he should at once pay a special tax on it's value which he has just lost. Or, that a mans family should be taxed on the money value of his life to them, be- cause he has died and they have lost that value.
 Insurance is merely method of dis tributing the property losses of those who have lost property among those who have not lost it. It is effected through contributions or payments, called premiums.
 As house, worth S5,000, and on which he has paid taxes while it was in being, has burned. A has lost $5,000 There is no restoring it. That property and it's value are gone forever, not only to A, but to the whole world. To tax A on that loss would be an unspeakable inhumanity.
 But A has insured against that loss, that is, he has agreed with other house-owners to share their like losses, if they will assume his loss If it comes. While his house is unburnt, he, by his premiums, assumes his share of the losses of those whose houses burn meantime. When his house burns, they, by their premiums, take his loss on their shoulders and make it good to him. They lose it instead of A, be- cause before that, he had, through his premiums, been losing his share of their houses which had burnt.
 Their assumption of the loss and giving A the money in place of his house hasn't restored the house. It hasn't changed the loss into gain, or into an even thing. The property is gone. The loss remains. It has mere ly been distributed. A sis made whole, but the contributors to that result have taken the loss to themselves and are just so much worse off. They have | lost As house. They have divided up ! the $5,00O loss among them. To tax A additionally on the 5000 | because it was returned to him would be inhuman. It would be to make him | lose something in spite of his own and others efforts to avoid loss, It would | be loss created and inflicted by gov ernment on the occasion of his escap- | ing from a greater loss It would be a | fine on him for not losing.
 l To tax the other men, who, by their l premiums, have taken As loss upon | themselves and distributed it among | themselves, is an equal inhumanity. | They have made As loss their own to save him. To tax them on their loss is | an equal outrage to taxing A upon l that same loss if 1t had remained on I him.
 l It is taxing loss and it is a fine, a punishment upon men for so sharing each others losses that it becomes pos sible for them to be borne. The group of men forming mutual insurance l company can together bear losses which would crush and destroy the in- l dividual But it is as inhuman and tyrannous to tax the losses of the group as to tax those of the individual which he would have to bear, but for the action of the group.
 The only element in the transaction that suggests taxation of these losses either to the individual or to the group or mutual company, is the fact that it requires the use of money to adjust them, and that the money is brought | into sight, in the hand of the adjusting l reach of the tax-gatherer, and so be- comes temptation to ignore the true nature of the fund which is simply the collective losses of the group or com pany, thereby relieving the individual calamities of it's members.
 Life insurance differs from fire in- surance only in the subject matter of the loss. Instead of a mans losing his house, or other perishabIe property, his family loses the money value, the earning and producing capacity of his life. His life, it's money value, what it | will do for them, what it will earn, is
 just as much property and their prop erty, their financial dependence as is just as much property loss to them
 as that of his house is to him. | For example: If a man, aged thirty
 is earning $1,000 a year for his family taking his chances of life according tc | the Actuaries' table, and assumins
 money to be worth per cent, the present value of his life in money te his family is $17,000. That is their ac. tual money property in his life That is the money they lose if he dies.
 If, when he dies, the state should
 openly tax that family on that loss, or | that amount, the world would stand
 aghast Such government could not live, for no one could live under it. | ifa iDS11rance ic sim nl1y ba tr;