New Britain herald., 1925-02-19

upon the transfer of such property of tax extremely simplefn adminis- tration and low in amount, ,. ..
 Income Taxes.
 "Differing from Income taxes, which arc deductions from what a taxpayer makes each year. and pay ment for which presumably can be made without hardship, inheritance and estate taxes are capital taxes; they take a part of the accumulated capital of the nation. This capital Is not usually represented by cash or readily marketable securities, but 1t may be a business built up by the decedent through his lifetime, or property long held, for'which there Is no immediate market. In conse- quence, to pay inheritance and estate taxes in cash, executors must sell the property which comes into their hands at what is equivalent to a forced sale, with the usual conse- quences of loss in value.
 "The effects of these excessive tax es are twofold: first, they tend to lower values throughout the country by reason of forcing upon the mar ket securities which cannot be read fly absorbed, thus lowering the very level of values upon which inher- itance and estate taxes are actually based Secondly, they take away the inspiration to work in order to build up a business or create a property.
 
 'The burden of taxation is one from which relief must be found. It touches directly and indirectly all of our citizens, The most obvious field of economy is for the government to spend less. IL is, however. equally desirable that the burden put by the government on its citizens be pro- ductiVe of government revenue and not destructive of the property of the taxpayer, for it is what the tax payer gives rather than what the government ultimately spends, which measures the effect of the tax upon the citizen. We should, therefore, by a simplification of .our method of taxation and the imposition of eco- nomically sound rates of taxation make certain that the government lealizes more nearly the values which the citizen relinqushes.
 At the last few annual meetings of the National Tax Association, and at recent conference of the tax commissioners of several states, the position has been taken that the federal government should withdraw from the field of estate taxes. This view has much to commend 1t. His torically, the federal government has entered this field only on the occa- sion of war emergency and in every case, except the present, has with drawn when the reason for eXcep- tional taxation ceased. The emer- gency created by the great war, when last the federal government entered the field, has ended. The right 10 inherit property owes its ex- istence, not to any federal law, but to the laws of the states. Federal es- tate taxation, therefore, has not the natural excuse which Is conceded o state inheritance taxation. The fed eral government being in the field, however, particularly with rates as excessive as those recently adopted, results in very material decrease in the amount and value of the prop erty upon which the states levy their inheritance taxes. If the states are to suffer diminution in revenue from this source, they can make up their losses only by higher taxes in other | fields.
 Already the taxes levied by the states upon land are so high as to menace the prosperity of the farmer. For the sake of the revenue which