Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1918-02-22
Demand Made for
Fair Revenue Bill
WAR TAX MEASURE DECLARED
UNJUST AND INADEQUATE.
British Law Held Up as a Model
for the United States.

New York, N. Y.-Amos Pinchot,
publicist, has issued a statement on
United States war taxes in which he
says:
Cup to the present time, practically
the only people who have been heard
on the subject of paying for the war,
have been the bankers, the agents of
the corporations, in fact, the people
who are making money out of the
war, and at the same time, escaping
a fair share of taxation.
Congress has passed an income
and excess profits tax that cannot
be collected, because it is too COM
plicated. If it could be collected, 1T
would still be both unjust and made
ouate. Under its provisions, a mar
ried man without a family, who has
a net income of $4,000 year, pays
an income tax of $3.50; he keeps the
remaining $44,820. Under its provi-
sions million-dollar corporation
which netted $4,000 a year before
the war, and which now nets $500,O0O
pays a tax of $154,200, and keeps
the remaining 300. That means
this corporation makes almost 400
per cent more than it did in normal
times.
as this bearing a fair share of the
wars privations and sufferlngs! !!
Compare the sacrifice made by the
$50, O,OOO-a-year-man and the $4,000
a-year-corporation with that of the
Door man, to whose family war has
meant hunger, cold, closed schools,
sickness, doctors bills and debt! Is
this a case of equal sacrifice or is 1T
a case of appalling sacrifice for the
poor man and little or none for the
rich man?
"And yet the American people have
looked on in silence. We have been
told by our trustees of public opinion,
that to talk about taxing wealth
would be unpatriotic. We have not
dared to speak. Only the million
aires, the bankers, politicians, prof
iteers and big newspapers that rep
resent them, have discussed taxes.
How shall we pay for the war?
why, out of the poor mans pocket,
of course. We will pay with bonds.
And the bonds will be redeemed by
taxes on the poor. That is the way
to finance war. 1t is the way all
wars have been financed, and anyone
who disagrees is pro-German, dis
turber of the peace, a demagogue.'
"Of course we have war bonds
You cannot raise twenty millions Of
dollars by taxation alone. The peo-
pie of England, however, have not
gaped in open-mouthed silence and
let the great and wise write their tax
laws. Nor have they stood like cows
waiting to be MIXED while the prof
iteers approached with the stool and
pail. They have passed subStan-
tial and workable, set of tax laws, and
they are preparing to proceed to con-
fiscation of capital in the near future.
Already England has tax of 80 per
sent on all net profits over and above
the pre-war average. In the case Of
the corporation mentioned by me, the
profits tax in England would be $344-
900 instead of the $154,200 collected
by our revenue bill (if, indeed, it can
be collected at alD. In England the
amount of net earnings this corpora
tion would be allowed to keep would
be $156,000, instead of the $345,8OO
conceded to wealth by our generous
legislators.
at is time for Americans to wake
up. There is nothing unpatriotic
about demanding a fair distribution
of the wars burdens. The British
Labor party is not bashful about
making it's wishes known. 1t states
them in no whispered tones, and
parliament and the cabinet listens
most attentively. But in the United
States it is different. Here we must
not ask for just taxes. We must
thank God that the rich are willing
to pay anything at all.
"There is a strange thing about
rich people in America perhaps
everywhere They will sacrifice even
life itself more willingly than they
will give up their guarantees of fl
nancial power. Accordingly, we see
that property has become the only
sacred thing which the country may
not demand of the rich.
"Uncle Sam may draft the sons of
the privileges class. All well and