Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-05-16
THE INCOME TAX.
vIII-Effect Upon Other
Taxes.

By Frederic ]. Haskin.

One of the principal objections to the
imposition Of an income tax in the United
States has come from the advocates OF
/ protection. the ground being that the col
| lection of such tax would lessen the
| demand of the Treasury for income from
| customs collections and therefore, it
would be blow at the principle Of pro-
| tecton. Upon the present basis OF ex-
| penditures in the United States the
amount of money needed from customs
| ranges around 1922. 100000, and anything
| that tends to reduce this amount of
course, tends to weaken one of the ia
| vor1te arguments of the protectionists
| against lowering of the tariff-that the
! government needs the money. Their OPP
/ ponents contend that this is no argument
| in favor of protection at all. since pro-
hibitive duties do not add anything di
| rectly to the public Treasury. but serve
| only to keep out foreign goods.
| On the other hand it is to be said that
not all protectionists agree that an in
come tax Is necessarily an assault upon
| protection. Those who hold that it is
| not. declare that under our rapidly ex-
panding governmental activities addi-
| tional appropriations are needed, and to
meet them additional revenues must be
forthcoming additional revenues that can
best be supplied by an income tax.
|
| X \
| 1t is probable that no one will deny
that as proposed by the democrats an in
come tax is an
lax Coupled With assault upon pro-
Assault on Tariff. 1901, ononoa. % ,na !,
| as a means of revenue-raising that not
only will permit them to cut out prohib-
4
| revenue-producing duties as well. With
| out this tax the democrats could not cut
| tariff duties below point where they
! would yield an annual revenue of over
$500 100000. With this income tax they
can probably cut them to a point where
they will yield $1OO.OOO.OOO less.
The great expansion of the national de-
mands for revenue that has taken place
| shows that If any kind of tax which we
| choose to levy is kept at even an APP
| proximately normal rate, from time to
| time new methods must be found of rails
| ing such revenues. In the early days Of
| the republic, when there was an especial
pinch In government finances, a direct
| tax apportioned among the states was
levied. For nearly half century before
| the civil war the customs receipts We're
about the only form Of taxes that the
| United States needed to carry on the af-
| fairs of the government. Then came the \
| great war, and everything in sight had to
| be taxed, with the result that the inter-
nal revenue taxes were created. After
| the war these taxes on production were
retained for the purpose of meeting the
| interest on the national debt. and they
have been continued SO long that every
body seems now to take them as mat
ter of course. Now the country has
come to a pass where even these two
! forms of taxation do not yield enough to
| meet the expenditures of the government
| in lean years. and Uncle Sam seeks some
| thing that will save him from putting
| up the ordinary internal revenue taxes
and the revenue-producing clauses of the
| tariff law.
| Taxing authorities generally agree that
| the United States taxes its .people less
h Willy
U. S. Burden Lighter than any
Than in Other Lands. u ua1 cpnntrv
in the world. If the American people
were willing to bear the same burdens of
taxation that are cheerfully borne by the
British. the German, the French and the
other nations Of Europe. a simple system
l OF internal revenue taxation would yield
a billion where now it yields few hun
/ dred million dollars.
| The one plain lesson OF the history of
| American taxation is that in these lat
/ ter days. when so much revenue is need
| ed that no one tax will meet all Of the
purposes and emergencies OF the coun-
try supplemental taxation must be rem
| dered possible II national life Is to be
| assured. national land tax as the en-
| CINE OF raising the national revenues
| would be outrageously high: national
customs tax to meet them all would de-
| mand tariff wall higher than the high
est of all the high priests OF protection
| would enact and an internal revenue tax
to keep the Treasury solvent would force
the price of drinks and smokes up SO high.
or else compel the extension Of the tax
| to so many commonplace subjects, that
| the people would rise in protest. 1t is
| by experimenting one tax with another
and understanding them both with al
| third that sufficient revenue can be raised
| and the objections of the people fore
| stalled.
| The national government has the ad-
| vantage Of the state governments In the
/ matter of tax.
outlay Not Felt ation-nearly all
by Those Who Pay. " u uas 9anes are :.
| taxes. The man who buys a suit oil
| clothes made of cloth of English weave
| cannot tell how much he has contributed
to the United States Treasury by the
/ transaction. Likewise. the man who
| smokes a box of Havana cigars knows
| nothing Of what Uncle Sam gets out of
| the price he paid for them Perhaps no
| man in America could calculate within
4 40 per cent of just how much tax he
| pays Uncle Sam each year through the
| customs houses. Not knowing what his
| burden is. and indeed in many instances
/ ignorant of the fact that he is burdened
/ at all. such taxes do not arouse oppo-
| sition. No one thinks of objecting to the
| internal revenue taxes. and the objec-
tons made to the tariff taxes are not
| based upon the amount the government
| exacts. but upon the alleged fact that
| home manufacturers use these rates as
| a shelter from competition