The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1917-07-14
war ON
Cash BASIS, PLEA
Daily Cost Should be Levi
ed as Current Taxation,
Englishman Says

Sidney Webb in the Atlantic
Monthly: The United Kingdom
alone among the belligerent nations
has enormously increased its taxa
ton from nearly all its sources OF
revenue, so that the government re-
ceipts for the ensuing year will be
nearly three times those for the year
before the war.
To give only one example, a man
with profits or dividends yielding
him 5000 pounds 415,000) a year
pays (a) an income tax quite
strictly enforced) of FIVE shillings in
the pound, or Is per cent; (b) a SUI
pertax or about per cent more; (c)
death duties on the capital value
passing at death. averaging about
10 per cent, which Ia equivalent
roughly to or 10 per cent add
tional income tax; and (dl, II his
income is derived from business,
either an excess profits tax amount
ing to 60 per cent of all the profit
made over and above that Of pre-
war times, or, in the case Of an
establishment making ships, guns or
munitions for the government, the
whole of the profit in excess of 20
per cent above prewar conditions.
The income tax is now payable by
persons getting as little as 100 pounds
($650) a year. And the taxes on
tea, coffee, cocoa, alcoholic drinks,
mineral waters, sugar, petrol and
what not, are equally heavy.
Demand for Higher Taxes
Nevertheless, it is the very decided
opinion Of economists and financiers
of all shades of political opinion, that
the British government has made
the mistake of not sufficiently in
creasing the tax revenue, and Of re-
lying too largely upon loans. This
mistake, it is very commonly held,
will make the financial burden far
more onerous, and far more crush
ing upon the country's industry, than
it need have been. 1t has also been
unfair. I'm my opinion" writes
Professor Pigou, who succeeded DR..
Alfred Marshall in the chair Of po-
litical economy at Cambridge uni
versity, ''the government has COM
mitted a very serious mistake in tax
ing so little and borrowing so much.
When young men are compelled to
give their lives. I see no reason why
old men should not be compelled to
give-and not merely asked to lend
their money; and I do not believe
that, had the government dared to
make that claim, it would have been
widely resented or opposed"
Indeed, the press has repeatedly
made a similar demand. We have
had the unprecedented spectacle,
with the tax revenue trebled, Of news
papers reproaching the government
for not taking more-not merely that
organ Of enlightened collectivism, the
New Statesman but also the bankers
own journal, the Economist, and the
Times itself
Gather in the Surplus.
What every government needs to
do in war time Is to pare down per-
sonal expenditure to the barest min
imum that each social class can be
induced to endure; and then to
gather in, for the maintenance Of the
war, the whole Of everybody's sur
plus above that barest minimum.
Theoretically, taxation should be so
adjusted as to take from everybody
all this surplus and no more. Prac-
tically, no system of taxation can be
contrived to shave so accurately; and
accordingly, in order to avoid intoler-
able personal hardship. the taxes
must fall we'll within this limit. But
the nation at war is imperatively
called upon, by all considerations Of
economy as we'll as equity, to put on
a steeply graduated series Of taxes.
so devised and adjusted as to avoid
trenching on the standard Of life of