The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1910-10-25
PROPOSED INCOME
TAX AMENDMENT
Is Not Designed to Extend Power of
Congress, Says Senator Gordon, in
Defending the Change.

| Editor Times: The Importance of the
amendment to the federal constitution
is conceded. The question of its adop.
tion is the only one OF national interest
coming before the present legislature
Those who are to vote upon the ques-
tion ought TO clearly understand the
purport of this amendment
in the first place, it should be noted
that the amendment does not mean an
extension OF the power to tax. The
federal supreme court has said: 1T
is true that the power of Congress ia
tax is a very extensive power. II is
given in the constitution with only one
exception and only two qualifications
Congress cannot tax exports and it must
impose direct taxes by the rule of appor-
tionment and indirect taxation BY the
rule of uniformity. Thus limited, and
thus only, it reaches every subject and
may be exercised at discretion" What
will be the effect of the adoption of the
proposed amendment? Win it give Com
gress the power to tax any different
class of property? No. 1t will simply
give it the right to exercise the power
which it already possesses by the rule
of uniformity and not by the rule OF
apportionment according to population
that is to say, in a more just and equita-
BILE way.
Why more just and equitableg Be-
cause the rule OF apportionment does
not distribute a tax according to the
ability to pay. If all the states in the
union were equal in population and in
wealth, and the individuals of each state
had an equal amount of wealth and in
come, and therefore an equal ability to
pay taxes, the apportionment rule would
be an ideal one, simple and just But
since this ideal distribution OF popula-
ton and wealth has never existed and
never will, the rule is impractical absurd
and discriminatory in favor of wealth,
Ex-Governor Barstow, III his speech
published in the Montpelier Journal OF
October 20, shows by specific example
how the rule would have worked under
the census of 1900 between the states
of New York and Vermont If the sup
posed tax had been distributed according
to population, Vermont would have had
a rate Of 100 per cent, while New York
would have had a rate of only 50 per
cent. Vermont's rate therefore would
have been 30 per cent. higher than that
Of her richest sister Suppose two farms
on opposite sides of the boundary line be.
tween the two states Suppose these
farms equal in value and income. the
Vermont farm would have to pay $4,000
and the New York farm only $4,000.
Chancellor Kent, the greatest of Amer
lean law writer's, well illustrates the
absurdity and injustice of the apportion-
ment rule, if it had been applied to the
carriage tax law of l794 If two states,
equal in census, were each to pay S.
10000 by a tax on carriages and in one
state there were one hundred carriages
and in another one thousand carriages,
the tax on each carriage would be ten
times as much in one state as in the
other. While A in the one state would
pay for his carriage $500, B in the other
state would pay for his carriage $4,000. .
In one state the tax would be bearable
and in the other unbearable and confis-
catory. How can anyone ask the gen
eral assembly of Vermont to vote for
the retention Of such rule, rule that.
as Kent says, "would lead to the gross
est abuse and oppression"
What are the arguments against the
adoption of the amendment, which If
adopted would abolish this unjust rule
of apportionmentf There are none. so
far as | have found. The arguments
we hear are advanced against an income
tax and not against a rejection Of the
rule of apportionment. But those who
oppose an income tax oppose the abo-
lition Of an apportionment rule, because
they think that under that rule there is
less likelihood of the levy of an income
tax. As there are no arguments adj