The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-10-14

do accord loans to foreign eoun- tries, exact very onerous condt- tions.
 The fault is attributed to the American character, when, as a matter of fact, the cause-apart from natural conditions-is prf- marily due to our taxation meas ures.
 The housing famine and the resulting hardships and high rentals are due, in considerable part, to the fact that the private investor, generally speaking, has withdrawn from the field of real estate mortgages, because they do not yield him a sufficiently attractive return after taking fn- to account the income tax
 The excessive heaviness Of both the excess profits tax and the income tax in it's higher gra- dations discourage enterprise and thereby retards production.
 In introducing in Parliament recently the British govern ments budget which included provision for a fifty per cent. re dUction of the British War Pro- fits Tax, the Chancellor of the Exechequer said that experience had shown that the existing high rate encouraged wasteful ex- penditure" and acted ''as a great deterrent to enterprise, industry and development"
 Another eviI-a more serious one than is generally appreciated and again an element making for high prices-is the huge and cumbersome machinery incident to the determination and collec- ton of certain of our taxes, not ably the excess profits and in come taxes.
 Stamp taxes practically collect themselves. For instance, to give a minor example, if we had a tax of one cent for eacn pox of matches. very few additional governmental employees would be needed to attend to the neces- sary routine work. The revenue would amount to a very large sum, the tax would hardly be perceptible to the individual, and incidentally it might cause us to be a little less wastefuI in the use of matches, which in the az gregate would mean quite an ap-
 
 assets.
 But the collection of the in- come and excess profits taxes is an enormously costly thing.
 To begin with, there is the number and expense of addition
 al employees of the Treasury and
 this number and expense, ac-
 cording to what information I
 have been able to obtain, are
 so amazingly large that, in the
 absence of official confirmation
 hesitate to mention the figure
 Then there is the time and
 cost of the reports which have to
 be filed by individuals, firms and
 corporations, reports so detailed,
 intricate and manifold that they
 call throughout the nation for
 the services of many thousands
 of clerks, accountants and law
 yers and for many hours of the
 time and thought of business
 men.
 A gentleman at the head of a fair-sized business informed me recently that in connection with our State and Federal tax meas ures, and at the call of the be- wildering variety of commissions created in recent years, he is re- quired to furnish in the course of one year, apart from nciden-
 tai reports due to the workmen's
 compensation and similar acts.
 not less than eighty-six different
 reports (about to be increased by
 twenty-three more in conse-
 quence of recent 1egislation). He
 calculates the actual cost to
 which he is being put in con
 nection with the preparation of these reports and the require
 ments incident thereto at the
 sum of s14.O00 per annurn. aside from the value of his own time.
 The number of reports which our railroads are called upon to furnish and the cost in time,
 thought and labor incident
 thereto run into figures which are actually unbelievable. Now all these things spell in creased prices to the community in two ways. First: the actual cost of clerk hire, accountants and lawyers fees, etc, is added to the cost of the product. Sec ondIy: national productivity is diminished.
 (a) by the time and effort de- voted to cumbrous and complex formaIities,
 Cb) by the withdrawal from creative activities, mental or physical, of the army of men who are employed by the gov ernment and by individuals, firms and corporations in con nection with the determination . dred functions, and who, how ever, industrious they may be, add nothing to the total of the nations assets, but on the con
 trary are maintained at the ex- pense of the nation. The actual cost, direct and indirect, to the government of the collection of the income and excess profit taxes has never been stated as far as I am aware. I believe if it were precisely as- certained and announced, the l figures would present an as- 1 founding total.
 And if there were added td them the incidental expense to individuals, firms and corpora l tions, the aggregate would be nothing less than staggering in it's magnitude.
 ' We have raised in taxes over
 forty per cent. of our total gov
 ernmental expenditures in the 1 two war years (eXcluding loans to allied nations).
 l Indeed, if we deduct from | "curretnt'' expenditures the l amounts spent for investments of
 permanent value, such as s:I:ps, l shin wards StnckS of the Wa1.