Los Angeles herald., 1909-12-20

| ISoaA for the collection of which re-
| IE# A84 Gently have been made pup
! @ lie, will not fall upon any
| ~ NEI large percentage of the
lR2kSl American people in direct
! way, although the corpora
! tions may be able indirectly to shllt
! the burden to all the people. statistics
show that per cent of the American
| people own 54.S per cent of the property
OF the nation, and that 1913 OF the re-
naming 90 per cent own 1922 per cent
| of the remaining property. From TINS
1t win be seen that fewer than one
ninth of the people own seven-elghths
! of the wealth of the United states. the
ether SS per cent of them must be sat
Listed with the beggarly crumb OF one
| eighth, divided among them all. FeW
! or none of them can own stock. AT the
| time the statistics were gathered the
average wealth of the families who
constitute only the hundredth part OF
the population was slightly more than
quarter of billion dollars; that of the
| families who constitute a ninth OF the
population was slightly less than Ill
teen thousand dollars per family. More
than half of the whole nation led the
hand -to-mouth existence of poverty.
| 1t probably is safe to assume, there
| fore, that only one person out of ten
! will feel that tax directly. But just as
| Alexander Hamilton once stated that
/ the tariff duty would ever be reckoned
/ in making up the cost to the ultimate
consumer, so will the corporation tax
be reckoned as one of the expenses OF
business and added to the cost OF pro-
duction. II has been one of the most
! serious questions of the history OF tax
! alton to prevent the shifting of the
burden from the shoulders of those
unon whom it is levied to the backs or
those for whom IT was not intended.
No one has yet devised guaranteed
/ to-Work or-money-refunded plan Tor
prevnting this shifting of the burden
II is estimated that the corporation
tax will yield about thirty million dol
lars year when the law Is IN Iull
| operation. As there are four hundred
! thousand corporations to which IL viii
apply. the average tax per corporation
| will be about seventy-fVe dollars. Yet
no one can know even approximately
| what il will yield. An instance OF now
| wide OF the mark the government est-
majors may come is the prediction OF
| former United states Treasurer ROD
erts, made in 1907 He said then that
the revenues of the government were
amounting TO fully 13 per cent more
than the expenditures. and that If the
| Dinglev law remained in force there
would be a surplus of S120,0OO,OOO for
the year. He recommended, therefore,
that the revenue laws be revised down
| ward to the extent of allowing Sl2O.-
600 600 to remain in the pockets of
the people. which might otherwise be
taken from them through the taxing
powers of the government. But then
i came the panic of october 1907, ana III
stead of a surplus of S12OOOO'OOO from
4 the years operations, there was q ue
felt of $50 900. 600. Thus had trained
fnancier missed his guess by the I'M
mense sum of SlS0,0OO,00O.
4 strenuous efforts are to be made 10
! have the CORPORATION tax declared unS
| constitutional Test cases will be
brought to the attention of the courts
lust as soon as possible. and one OF
| these will be carried to the supreme
court and an expeditions decision ask
| cd there In the senate IL was freely
declared bv many that the measure is
unconstitutional, fully as much so as
an income tax according to the 1893 DC
clsion. 1t viii be attacked on that
| ground. It will be attacked also on the
ground that the system of bookkeeping
II win involve is an impossible one, and
that the publicity features are so con-
Trajectory that the purpose of congress
in connection herewith cannot be ac-
complshed.
All sorts Of corporations are going to
fight the measure tooth and nail, and
are confidently expecting that 1t will
be forced to go the way of the income
tax law of the Wilson-Gorman tariff
on the other hand there are many who
believe that the supreme court Will
sustain it, and still others arc inclined
to hope that there will be at least an
oblter dictum opinion expressed on the
income tax question. They think that
| the court cannot very we'll decide the
question of the constitutionality of the
| corporation tax without giving some
clew to it's present views on the in
come tax.
1t is said that there will be many
ways to get around the corporation
tax. In fact, the corporations which
wish to dodge it do not need to go
so far as to employ lawyer to devise
these ways. The senate debates on the
tax will form a sort of textbook for
the dodger. In their effort to show
the impracticability of the measure
the senate lawyers in opposition 10 II
pointed out it's weak spots. and these
revelations are now in the Congresslop-
al Record. where they may be read
and seen of all men.
one of the ways of lodging the tax
will be for a corporation to resolve
itself into a limited partnership NO
| 4bo,, hour xrpaItbV ii is or now