The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-09-22

| with reference to the constitution II
seems to me clear that the corpora
| ton tax is an equitable burden, one
reaching active business not too heavy
to retard it but enough to collect G
| substantial revenue from those who
are successful in business.
cit is a tax easily collected-one
that no corporation can escape-one
| in which perjury can not play any I'M
portant part at all in an effort to
| escape it.
Another feature of it is that Incl
.dentally it will give the federal gov
eminent an opportunity to secure
most valuable information in respect
to the conduct of corporations and
their actual financial condition, which
they are required to show in general
terms in public return. In addition
the law provides the means under
proper limitations of investigating
fully and in detail their course of
business.
quate statistics concerning our corpor-
atoms and any fundamentally by
which the corporations shall be COM
PEELED to disclose their conditions GER
tainly makes for the public good.
Indirectly, it would help very much
in another tariff revision, whenever
that shall comes because corporations
engaged in business said to be affected
by the tariff will have upon record in
Washington their exact f1nacial con-
dition from year to year in the matter
of their incomes, their expenditures
aid their debts.
Income Tax Amendment.
Having said this much with re-
I want to say few words in favor
of the passage of the income tax
amendment as proposed by congress
to the states.
Assuming the constitutional
authority to have been given I am OPP
posed to a general individual income
tax law, except in times of great ma
tional stress. 1 am opposed to 1t be-
cause of the difficulty already alluded
to, that it puts such a premium on
perjury as to have led other govern
ments to abandon that method of
levying an income tax and imposing
the tax wherever possible on the
sources of income in the hands of
those who are not ultimately to pay
it. But I am most strongly in favor
of adoption by the states of the
amendment uthorizing congress to
impose an income tax without APP
portioning the proceeds among the
states according to population and l
am strongly in favor of this because
in times of great stress, if war or
some other calamity were to visit
this country, the income tax would be
one of the essential instruments by
amount of money to enable us to
meet the exegencies.
IF the income tax amendment
passes, as 1 hope 1t may, we can then
enlarge the corporation tax so as to
include a proper burden on the bond
holders in corporations as we'll as
upon the shareholder and this will
make this instrument of taxation even
more equitable than it now is.
Those who favor a directly per-
sonal income tax for the purpose of
restraining great wealth will probably
find it ineffective for the reasons
given.
Division of Great Fortunes.
ST have already considered in a
speech in Columbus in 1907 how our
great fortunes could be divided with
out drastic confiscatory methods. It
seems to me new, as it did then, that
the proper authority to reduce the
size of fortunes is the state rather
than the central governments Let
the state pass laws of inheritance
which shall require the division of
great fortunes between the children
of the decedents, and shall not per-