The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1912-08-17
Tax Commission is Condemned
A Brief Against the Proposals of the Louisiana Tax
Commission by a Member of the Constitutional
Convention of 1898.

any candidate for Office IN the
Estate Government will be bound
to have the approval of the cor
porations in order to succeed.
| In the Lottery campaign the
Democracy spurned the offer
made by the Lottery Company to
pay the expenses of the State Gov
eminent, and they warned the
people of all parties in the State
that if the Lottery Company
should be the only taxpayer to
the State every State officer
would have to be the servant and
tool of the Lottery Company.
The objectionable sin of the
proposal of the Tax Commission
is the fact that it proposes an
indirect taxa tax that is not
direct, a tax that can be shifted.
In Economic Science it is known
that the industrial organization
produces all wealth that is pro-
duced. In the last analysis there
are only two factors in the pro-
duction of wealth, labor and land.
Labor, the active factor, is ap-
piled to Land, the passive factor.
THE result produced is wealth,
which when divided between him
who is the laborer, and him who
owns the land, the share of la
Dor is called wages, and the share
of the land owner is called rent.
Now, there is only one direct
advalOrem tax, it is a tax ON the
value of land, and it is payable
out of Rent. 1t cannot be shift
ed. The direct tax that cannot
be shifted is the very tax that is
not proposed by the Tax Commits
sion. That is the tax that is
avoided by the Tax Commission.
The tax proposed is in line and
conformity with every other in
direct tax that has been imposed
and collected throughout the
ages, for it is aimed at and will
be taken from Wages. 1t is in
tended to be put on the corpora
tons, but it is not intended to
stay where it is put, and if the
proposals shall be adopted it is
not going to stay where it is put.
1t is going to be shifted on to
people who earn wages. tits in
tended to be one more burden
added to a long list of burdens
under which the masses are op-
pressed. 1t is of a piece with
every scheme in the world which
makes use of Government pow
ers for exploiting the masses for
the benefit of the classes.
Our National Government has
never raised any considerable
part of the vast revenues that it
collects by a direct tax. It's prin-
cipal method of indirect taxation
I is the Tariff. Under old Demo-
cratic regime the Tariff was low,
and intended for purposes of
revenue only. 1t was, however,
an indirect tax and was unfair
because indirect, and also unfair
to the extent that it incidentally
favored certain benefciaries.
Under the Republican regime
the Tariff is SO constructed that
the main purpose is to benefit
the favored classes while Incl
dentally providing the revenue.
The masses are plundered under
the Republican Tariff beyond
anything we know of within his
| toric. time. The classes are cor
respondingly benefited. Con-
trast the present condition of the
classes with that of the masses.
There is gulf. 1t is a counter
part of the gulf that Dives be-
held when he lifted up his eyes
in hell! That gulf is the legiti-
mate, necessary and unavoidable
result of indirect taxation.
In Great Britain the Parliament
had for three centuries prior to
the year 1910 raised the revenues
for the Nation by indirect taxa
ton. In 1910 a direct tax. was
levied on land values. The levy
was made in order to increase
the revenues, the amounts avail
able by means of the indirect
tax being insufficient to meet the
exigencies of the Nation on ac-
count of a great navy. The land
ed aristocracy of Great Britain,
which is represented by the
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