The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1920-09-23
EXCESSIVE TAX
KEEPSPRICES UP
Federal System Has Great
ed an "Intolerable
Situation"
PRIVILEGE TAX
is SUGGESTED
Gross Sale Tax Also Ex-
planned to National Asso-
citation of Cotton Mfrs.

Maplewood, N. H., Sept. 23.--Th,
present system of federal taxation wal
declared to have created IAN intoler
able situation" and to be responsible
for the continued high prices of many
articles, by speakers at the opening
session to-day of the semi.annua
meeting of the National Association o.
Cotton Manufacturers. Suggested sub
stitutes included an employers priv
lege tax, outlined by Theodore II. Price
editor of Commerce and Finance oil
New York, and gross sale tax ex.
planned by William f. Cornwell OF
New York. The people of the county
Mr.. Cornwell said, are becoming edu.
! Gated to the fact that the whole system
OF taxation in the United States is
wrong, adding that the system was
founded on class and sectional bias"
"The present method of taxation is
wastefully destructive" Mr. Cornwell
continued, but it is only during the
| past year or so that the public has
| become alive to the fact. To-day a
vast number of people of all classes
not only bankers and business heads,
but those in the rank and file of all
| occupations are impressed. This wide
spread knowledge is mainly due 20 the
fact that the public is beginning to see
that prices are being kept high in
many articles because of the present
excessive taxes"
Two important sources of the eoun.
trys progress are being dried up by
s..,a g . h, 30 a.,I
the heavy surtaxes on incomes, the
speaker said. These sources were sur
plus capital and intelligent enterprise.
AS to the first" he continued, the
high taxes are driving people with
large incomes to invest as much as
possible in tax exempt securities in.
stead of furnishing capital for new
business and general commercial and
financial development.
And as TO the second, extra profits
in business are being appropriated by
the government instead of being used
to strengthen business concerns and to
provide against losses in lean periods,
which are bound to come
The requirements of good tax sys.
tenn, Mr. Cornwell said, were. that it
be fair TO all, that the burden be uni
versally distributed and that the col
lection be simple and easy instead of
being complicated and irritating.
"A tax on gross sales is an ideal de-
velopment of these requirements" he
added. at is passed along in very
small fractions and added through the |
various processes from the producer of |
raw material to stage after stage dur |
ing manufacture, the tax almost col |
Letting itself, accommodating automati- |
eally as il proceeds, and is finally paid |
by the consumer practically without |
his knowledge, and the additions are so
trifling as not materially to affect |
pricesn
Mr.. Price, in his address, declared |
that the present surfaces penalize sue
cess and compel an enterprising man
to pay the government an immoderate
share of his gains in a profitable year,
leaving him TO bear the losses of an
year alone.
Explaining the employers privilege
tax which he proposed as a substitute
for the present system, Mr.. Price said
In part:
by and large the great mass of
Things NnAt UdHkluu consumes are the /
product of work. on the farm, and in
the mines, factories and Offices There
fore If the labor cost Of these things
was taxed we should approximate an
equitahly distributed consumption tax
and IL il were supplemented by a rea
sonable income tax plus moderate sur
taxes, we would, II seems TO me. be
coming about as near as we can get to
4 painless and fairly apportioned tax
"A manufacturer or merchant whose
disbursements for wages sal.
aries or piece work totalled 100000
would at the end Of the month send
a statement to Washington with a
heck for the amount Of his tax II the
AK were five per cent his check would
be $1,000. which he would include in
his overhead charges and add 20 the
selling price Of his product.
The price paid by the manufacturer
II an entirely finished or marketable
product for the raw or partially fin
shed material that he used would
lave been correspondingly increased by
he employers privilege tax paid upon
he wages paid to those employed in its
production and thus the price at which
he article was sold for consumption
would include all the employers priv.
pge taxes that il had to hear in lis
'rogress from the frs, producer TO the
Ultimate buyer