Evening star., 1925-09-20
TAX SAPPINC INDUSTRY.
UTILITIES CHIEF HOLDS
L. S. Storrs Declares Levies by States and
Government Are Taking All Profit.
Says People Pay.

/
popular pastime Of soaking the rich.
Somehow or other. the rich anage to
squirm out of these tax eXactions.
The man who pays the taxes In the
end Is always the little fellow.
Cites Hidden Tax.
Take the taxes paid by corpora
tions. People seem to think they can
relieve the poor Of taxes If they can
make the corporations pay them. Yet
how shortsighted. Here Is one little
sum of $50 ,0O0, 900 that rolls into the
money chests of States and cities from
one class Of big corporations. 1 speak
of the insurance companies. OF
course, the insurance companies ray
far more than this sum in taxes. But
these $59,00G,000 are made of small
imposts-so small and so hidden away
that nobody ever hears about them
yet so numerous that they amount to
enough to pay insurance on an sddi-
tional $4,000, 100000 of insurance for
the American people. Who do you
suppose pays this SIS, 900, ,0O0o
Pay Countless Levies.
The same thing is true Of the al
most countless taxes paid by the street
car compa MES of the country. Our
street car companies must pay Federal
income taxes, State income taxes, Fed
eral corporate taxes, real property
taxes, personal property taxes, fran
chfse taxes and gross-receipt taxes.
That sounds like enough taxes, doesn't
it? Yet it Is only the beginning. There
are all sorts of added imposts-car IL
censes. pole licenses, wire licenses
track licenses. car-advertising licenses
and numerous others. But this is not
all. Most street railways pay for paw
Ing construction and maintenance
street cleaning. street sprinkling
snow removal from streets, bridge con-
structions, and in many places traffic
police. support of public service COM
missions, street-lighting and other
services. Then. besides all this, free
| transportation is exacted for flremen,
policemen, mail carriers and in some
places municipal employees. Thirty
one of our companies investigated last
year paid more than $34, ,000, 900 in
these taxes and imposts in a year, and
this amounted to more than 10 per
cent OF our gross operating revenue.
This means that every tenth passen-
| ger who gets on a street car must pay
his fare to the Government And that
| Is the passenger most companies hope
| to make their profits FROM
Every Business Hit.
| Mr.. Storrs' statement did not alto
gether surprise me. Indeed, this evil
of multiple taxation applies to many
| lines of business, though hardly as
seriously as to the street railways.
l read recently of manufacturer
the head of large rubber company
who declared publicly thai his COM
pany paid 23 different kinds of taxes.
And he gave the list. This man said
that his company had thousands Of
employees on Its payrolls. These thou
sands Of employees collected $500, 900
In wages, while the % tax collectors
collected S1,000,000 in taxes. For every
500 paid out in wages by this COM
pany 1t had to pay S13.40 in taxes.
And what did the stockholders get?
Here is the record for three years:
| In 1921 for every share of common
| stock the collectors got S16.64 and the
shareholders got 81 In 1922 the tax
gatherers got s21.75 and the stock
holders got nothing. In 1923 the tax
officials gobbled up $20.11 a share and
| the stockholders got nothing.
Talk about the Government taking
over industry, the factories, and run
ming themi What do they want to
| take over the factories for when, as
| things stand with this mans business,
| they can collect $50 share while the
| owner gets nothing?
This country has got to stop this
| orgy Of taxation" Mr.. Storrs con,
| tinued. 1T is easy to impose taxes,
but difficult to get rid of them. And
it is not only the public utility CON-
panies that suffer, but all business
| every merchant, every manufacturers
no matter how small or how large
| and in the end it is the wage earners,
the people as a whole, who are the
sufferers, because it is they who must
pay the bills
(Copyright 1921