Arizona republican., 1922-06-22
THURSDAY MORNING. JUNE %, 1922
Did Ve compare the miserable
scantiness of our capacities aclth the
uast profondity Of things, truth and
nodesty aoould teach us aodry lan-
guage. -GlanV1l.
A Nuisance Tax

One of the subjects before the recent conference
of American Publishers in New York was the op-
pressive taxation of newspapers relief from which Is
proposed in bill introduced in congress by Relse-
sentative Kelly of Pennsylvania. This tax is in the
form of enormously increased rates second class
matter. the rate being fixed according to zones"
This is enc of the wartime which the Kelly
bill proposes to reduce.
1t was in the first place an i'll advised tax SO
far as concerned the increase of the governments
revenues. Like many of the other hastily imposed
war taxes, it defeated its purpose by reducing
the volume of newspapers which sent through
the mails. Many of the publishers ayailed themselves
express companies for the transportation of their
products distant zones they could well afford
to do so Publishers of magazines which exposed
for sale on fixed dates abandoned the of the
mails entirely.
A newspaper whose circulation or the bulk of it
was largely confined to the zone in which it is pub
lished to adjacent as most of them are.
escaped the exactions imposed upon the widely
circulated publications but they still heavily
taxed by increase of the rate in the first by
100 per cent. But within the first ada
newspapers readily came to depend upon
other means of distribution than the mails. Tho
increase of the rate to distant amounted to
as much as 900 per cent. An average Cleveland, Ohio
newspaper whose subscription price was 81 all over
the country before this tax levied, was obliged
TO increase its subscription rate to $21.5o to the
seventh zone The annual postage on The Republican
delivered to subscriber in California is about s6,
making its subscription price there $1S.
The present tax was not laid upon the newspa-
pers "at one fell swoop" 1t accreton of in
creases the of which the Kelly bill proposes
to wipe out.
No good reason was ever given for the imposition
of It. 1t hampers the newspapers. we have shown
without producing corresponding revenue to the
government. The proponents of the tax overlooked
something else that the Penrose- overstreet COM
mission observed, that second class matter is
incentive to increase of postal business in this
way: Second class matter is itself the of
great volume of first class matter upon which the
department reaps handsome profit"
= One of the popular objections to indirect taxes
is that they not lie where they thrown. They
are pushed along the last mantle ultimate
sumner, who has to pay.
And that what the proponents of this tax
tried to tell pubshers-that in the end they would
not have to pay the tax-they would pass it along.
1t is almost an immoral thing to make such
avowal-to admit that the taxes are intended to be
levied upon the long suffering consumer. But the
newspaper business different from other businesses
When publisher is taxed there is place to which
he push it along" He cannot regulate the SELL
ing price of his product by the cost of production.
His price is dependent so far as concerns the adver
tiser the chief patron of the quality
and quality means circulation and buying power.
That is the modern advertising rate is based solely
on circulation. The advertiser nothing about
production costs.
The publisher may slightly push the tax along
TO the subscriber with the risk of losing him in which
case the quality of the paper far it affects
The advertiser suffers
And as we have shown the tax has been neees-
sarily pushed along to the subscriber in the distant
zone. As the bulk of advertising in newspapers is
intended generally to reach only local subscribers or
subscribers within less restricted territory
advertiser is not affected by the loss of distant
subscribers.
Anyhow, though, the tax under the head
of nuisance taxes" annoying and without adyan-
tage to the government.