El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-05-27

EEa0eI
By many people has not been born.
This applies not only 10 income taxes.
but TO property taxes as we'll One
Of the principal objections urged
against the income tax is that it would
make US a nation OF liars and put a
premium upon perjury. One does NOT
nave TO go very far to find that IF
We regard differentiation as lying and
failure TO list property as perjury. we
are already such a nation and such a
premium already has been placed upon
perjury.
To what an unimaginabIe extent tax
lodging has been carried on is shown
by the records of the census office In
1yU+ the uneEempJed properly in the
United States was valued at a little
more than 100000. 100000. this calua--
ton being given in by the people to
the census enumeratOrs- But when the
assessors Of taxes went around listing
uthables q little later, these same pea
pie placed valuation Of less than
OOo,OOO,OO0 upon that same property.
Evade Personal Property Tax.
The worst evasion, of course, comes
with personal property because such
a large percentage of that is intansyI-
Die and can escape assessment. II is
so bad, indeed, in many states, that II
an income tax law could make il
worse than II would be surprising: so
bad that one authority declares that
Few but the ignorant do not dodge per-
Sonal property taxes, so bad that an
Illinois commission has branded it a
school for perjury promoted by law
so bad that In West Virginia they saw
people regard the payment of personal
taxes 10 be just about as voluntary
as Sunday school contribution.
how extensive the lodging of per-
Sonal property taxes is may be shown
Dy the ugureS from many states. The
census inquiry of 1904 valued the per
Sonal property of Pennsylvania at ST.
coZ-UJO,UOO ard the tax returns valued
it at s1,1O4. 100000 New York. accord
ing 10 the census. had personal prop
erJy valued at $500, 90, and ac-
cOrGlnE to the tax lists il was worth
only $500. 600 600 In the United States
as a whole the people informed the
census enumeratOTs that their per-
Sonal property was worth $4,000. 00e.-
QUO and declared TO the tax assessor
that its fair value was 100000 600.
Real Estate is UnderyaIucd.
The lodging Of taxes is by no means
IlmlLed 10 personal property for in
nearly every city and hamlet and
farming district there is a systematic
undervaluatiOn OF real estate. OF
course there is no chance of dOdging
entirely, since land ownership al
ways and everywhere is recorded. But
there are lnnumerable instances where
real estate has sold for two. three
TOUR, and even five times the value at
" men II was assessed So widespread
has become the practice of undervaI-
uinE real estate in the United States
that the tax books show an aggregate
value of only half as much as the cen
sus records In other words. the land
owners OF the country told the census
enumerGtOrS that their real estate was
worth twice as much as they sWOre to
the assessor 1t was worth.
Counties EvGde State Levies.
Property owners are not the only
take dodgers in the United States by
any manner of means. Even whole
counties very frequently join tacitly in
a movement to beat the state in which
they are located out of the revenue
that belongs to IT. For instance. not
long ago the auditor of Virginia an
hounced that OF 100 counties in the
state 20 took more money out OF the
state treasury for their purposes than
they put in it by tax collections. Some :
OF them have deliberately. and with
IoretnouGht, fixed a rate OF assessing /
property at q fourth. or even a fifth Z
Of It's real value This permits them I
10 pay into the state treasury a very Z
small share Of what they ought to, and {
they pronounce it good business policy. [
since they take out of the state treas I
ury funds appOruiOned on population.
From this it viii be seen that the 4
evils of tax lodging are by no means =
limited TO income taxes. and there can
not well be a greater tax upon the ma {
than with q personal property tax. |
With an exemption Of income below /
$4,000 IL is not probable that more
than one man in p viii have to pay an 4
income tax, so that If every man who Z
IS liable TO 1t strains his conscience ]
II VIII be in no wise comparable in .
the number Of people affected, to false I
returns that are made in every state I
IN the union upon personal property :
Income Tax Hard to Dodge.
But with a system Of stoppagc at !
ITS source such IS England has. only n /
comparatively small percentage of the ]
income taEpayerS can dodge it by /
raise returns After the civil war there
were less than 100000 taxpayers under Z
the income tax law, when the eEemp- I
ton was as low as $1,000. Assuming
that there would be as many in proper I
lion today who would have incomes /
Of 5000 the total number directly at !
lectcG WOulCunOL be more than $4,000. ]
and Of these, the bulk of the incomes,
according to the English experience,
four-ffths), would have little oppOr-
tunity for tax lodging
1t Is probable that @ system Of stop
page at the source would reach a Z
larger proportion of taxpayers in the
United states than in any other cOuu- \
Try, including England. since a larger ]
proportion of the wealth OF the United /
states Is corporate wealth For in
stance, the corporation tax returns I
snow a total corporation capital in the !
United States of $4,000. 0OO. 600. which I
is probably more than half OF the total /
wealth Of the country as il viii be re-
Vealed when the census bureau fin
ishes its tabulations of wealth. In 1904 /
the total national wealth was placed
at $107,0 O0,OO0,OO0-
Methods Of Evasion in England.
In England many methods OF eva
sion are resorted TO, some legitimate
and others clearly unlawful Many
corporations which are in reality Eng
llsh corporations with branches in
other countries assume to be foreign /
corporations in England. Some cOrpO-
ratiCns which do business abroad. i'm
order to save their incomes from that-I
business from being taxed. establish
permanent branches abroad and never
bring the income home. The English I
likcn this to the policy OF American ]
VINO. in order to get
around the tariffs which other cOun-
tries levy against American goods,
build branch factories in the countries
where they desire to avoid duties. and
do their manufacturing there rather
than to make their products in the
United States and ship them into the
countries i'm question.
Still another way to dodge their in
come taxes, resOrted to by the Eng
.ish, is to turn over shares in cOrpO-
-atiOns to their sons. the income there Z