Norwich bulletin., 1914-12-02
BESIEGED REVENUE COLLECTOR
Callers and Letters Came in Floods on First Day of New War Tax-Collector Farrell at New London for this District, Tells Everyone He Has No Stamps to Sel-Must be Bought From Office in Hartford.

ance policies, protests, toilet prepara.- tions. Telephone and telegraph mes sagess in which the toll exceeds 15 cents are taxed one cent. Berths in sleping cars, seats in parior cars and railroad tickets aboxa a certain cost
 Who Shall Pay7
 The cause of much of the confusion on tho opening day of the new act is found in the questions as to who shall such as those Surrounding the ship ment of freight or express bundles and The dlingF of .telegrams.
 Public Has To.
 B Thus instead Of the tax bearing up- on telephoRe.s telegraph and express eornpaAies,s each passes it along to the long suffering public which has to pay if it wants the service.
 The telegraph aud telephone com railroads. are merely, collection agen- ctes for, tic goyerp9nept and are not required to pay any, part of the tax themselves. For Instance the manag- CTS of the local telegraph companies have received their instructions as to tax on telegraIns. From each cus- toner filing paid message the com pany will collect one cent. For each message sent collect, the office which collects the fee will also collect the tax of one cent. Each month the com panies vii be required to make a re- port to the collector of internal rey- enue. showing the number of mes- sages sent and received and to this re- port will be attached the funds col- lected. Similar methods apply to tel ephone companies. The shipper or case of express or freight packages. Bill of Ladina Decision
 In Hartford question arose as to the stamps on bills of lading. In an- swer to telegram to Washington, Coll lector James J. Walsh received a de- cision from headquarters which is of importance to collectors everywhere. The telegram was as follows:
 James J. Walsh, Collector, Hart lading require stamps. butt duplicates l should have written or stamped there or. original duly stamped Where charge does not exceed 5 cents, bill of Iading does not require stamp. Please notify traffic department.
 "W. H. Osborn, Commissioner" | Washington, Nov. 30, 1914" In regard to. the present situation Collector Walsh made the following statement:
 According to law. the responsible l ity is all on the taxpayer, especially
 
 sent by other than registered mail There can be no particular criticism | of the present handling of the tax. for conditions have moved much more smoothly than when the war tax was levied for the Spanish American war At that time there were not so many offices in this state or others where the payments could be made, for then there was only the Hartford and New l Haven offices in Connecticut. At the present time this district is in 3 much better position for paying and receiving the tax than is the state o1 | Massachusetts. Tn this district, in- cluding Rhode Island and Connecti- cut, there are offices at Hartford, New Haven and at. Providence, R. l., and I have installed one at Bridgeport for | the purpose of supplying the denom- | national stamps. This latter action I have taken on my own responsibility l as the government does not require it 'In Massachusetts there is but one office where the orders can be made That is in Boston and the officials there are in a worse fix than we have beer | in Hartford. We are exerting every effort to accommodate the public but are naturally held down by regula- 1 tions to giving out stamps to stamI deputies and not to other sources oi 1 delivery. The response of the post masters will help to a. considerable amount, but it is not compulsory fol them to accept stamps for sale"