Evening star., 1922-05-01
Rate by MaiI-Payable in Advance.
MARYLAND ard Virginia.
Fair Play in Taxation.

FAR Play IN TAXATION.
Refusal by either house to accept
the conference report on the District
bill, SO far as it proposes new and radi
cal legislation, will have no natural
tendency to deadlock the two houses
on the bill or to threaten failure of
the whole of the proposed appropria-
tions. Suggestion Of that effect Of op-
position to the conference report has
been made, but the threatened danger,
on analysis. turns out to be baseless.
If the House sends back the report
to the conferees twill insist upon its
original paragraph 1, which uses for
the current year the 60-40 ratio and
authorizes sliding scale tax rate on
realty and tangible personally to raise
the Districts 80 per cent share Of the
annual appropriation. The House will
do this with confidence since it knows
that the Senate will yield to its con-
tention on this point in preference to
permitting the District appropriation
bill to fail. The House knows that the
Senate has already for two years in
succession thus yielded.
If the Senate rejects the conference
law-enacting report it will insist upon
it's own amendment Of the House bills
to the precedent Of the last two years.
concur in the Houses original propo-
sition on this particular point.
The current temporary law and
present practice are continued by the
House proposition. and a minimum Of
harm would probably be done IL it
were continued for another year.
Meanwhile the Jones resolution for in
vestigation of the surplus could be
passed and put into operation, and the
results of this inquiry would be useful
later in framing the wisest and fairest
permanent system of fiscal relation
between nation and capital.
The suggested controversy over the
surplus. involving the question
whether the District is the nation 8
creditor or debtor, is unprecedented
and unique. The nation, which de-
cides all legislative questions concern
ing the District, without consulting
the capital community, fixed the time
when the local taxpayers 81 ould pay
their taxes near the end Of the fiscal
year instead Of near it's beginning.
Now Uncle Sam, representing the
ration, is pictured as throwing q fit
of indignation over the discovery that
by fixing tax-payment day near the
end of the fiscal year he has lost in
terest on the few months advances to
meet District expenditures in the first
nine months of the year before the
current local taxes are paid in and
available. And Uncle Sam is pictured
as proposing to correct his own al
legged blunder, not in the natural way,
by moving tax-payment day from
near the end to near the beginning Of
the fiscal year, but by compelling the
District taxpayers Of the next five
years to pay an extra years taxes and
advance, of use to render it certain
that Uncle Sam shall not make any
advance to the District, however
slight and temporary, Of moneys for
capital expenditure; though the act
Of 1878 evidently contemplates ad-
vances by the nation and reimburse
rr mt by the District.
It is even suggested that Uncle
Sam should collect from the District
taxpayers Of today the driblets of in
terest which he might have collected
On these slight temporary advances in
the past, before current taxes were
available, or which he might have
svoided by selecting scme other day
than one near the end Of the fiscal
year for the Washingtonian to pay
his taxes.
But It is inconceivable that Uncle
Sam should punish the taxpayers of
today for his own confessed neglects
Of the past. It is inconceivable that
Uncle Sam should impose a 20 per
cent annual fine upon the taxpayers
Of the next five years, to punish an
. offense which they have not commit
ted, and to remedy a condition for
which Uncle Sam is solely responsible,
the extra years tax money not to be
used to meet urgent municipal needs.
but to be maintained unused as
, cash balance in the Treasury for
Uncle Sans unnecessary financial
protection.
These unjust impositions are incon.
ceivable, because Uncle Sam, what
ever his faults, is not small and mean.