Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1931-10-01
SALES TAXES

Sales taxes is subject that is
again receiving much publicity and
attention, today largely on national
scale.
There was considerable sales tax
talk in Minnesota during the life OF
the interim tax committee created in
1927 and continued in 1929-the COM
mittee which The Minneapolis Tribune
says cost the state over $4,000. was
created by a special act of the legis-
lature, land when it handed in its
report at the end of the session, too
late to be of any constructive value,
it did not get much beyond declara-
tion of the fact that the most effective
form of tax relief would come through
a reduction of levies."
Some of the members of this COM
mittee sent out recommendations for
a state sales tax at their various
meetings. To his credit, Governor
Floyd B. Olson punctured this idea
when he came out in mo uncertain
terms against the sales tax. After
this statement by the governor there
was little talk in the legislative halls
of Minnesota for that type of tax col
lecting.
Senator David A. Reed of Pennsyl
vania, intimate friend and political
associate of Secretary of the Treas
ury Andrew Mellon who has been the
Santa Claus to the large income tax
payers of America during the last
decade, is advocating a national gen.
eral sales tax. In the words of The
Minneapolis Tribune Secretary Mel
Ion has said more than once that
some sort of revision of the nations
tax structure is in order, and it is
certainly not beyond the bounds of
possibility that he has whispered the
sales tax idea into the always at
tentive ear of his Pennsylvania con-
fidant and is now observing the pop
ular reaction toward it.
ReactiOnarieS Want Sales Tax.
Senator Reed Smoot of Utah has also
long been an advocate of the sales tax.
They we'll know that this tax would
produce federal revenue i'm most at
tractive quantities. 1t would relieve
income taxpayers and place addi-
tional burdens upon the great mass
of American consumers. These men
are powerful leaders in the ranks of
the most reactionary crowd in our
political life. 1t is the same group
which was responsible for putting
over the obnoxious Hawley-Smoot tar
iff bill, the worst tariff law enacted
in the history of America.
The sales tax is a nuisance tax, a
consumers tax-one which will be
paid by the great mass of the Amer
lean buying public, already over
taxed, in many cases almost to the
point of confiscation of property. 1t
will make a tax collector out of every
retail merchant, inaugurating a sys-
tenn of espionage which will be nigh
ty distasteful to our people.
The sales tax, applied to all ar
ticles, is one of the most viciously I'M
fair levies that the perverted wit of
man can devise. The poor man is
taxed on his entire income because he
must spend it all to care for his fam
lily. The super-rich man cannot spend
his entire income, has no need to
spend more than a minor fraction of
it; and the sales tax takes no toll from
what he does not spend.
A sales tax means that whenever
anybody buys anything, he pays for
the article, and in addition, a GER
tain sum to the government. 1t is
retroactive, bears no relation to
profits, burdens uniuly the merchant
doing a large volume of business ON
small margin of profit, and applies
equally to gross receipts yielding loss
or profit.
Past experience shows the cost of
collecting this tax to be exceedingly
high, amounting to from SO to 1870
of the receipts in the state Of Penn
sylvania where it has been unsatis-
factorily levied for some years. The
tax will penaliZe the consumers of
the product it is levied on--the great
big majority of American citizens. 1t
is tax that will affect $3.50 of our
population unfavorably. The 2%o who
are enjoying a highly profitable in
come of course will benefit
A Tax on the Masses.
Sales tax is wrong in principle, I'M
just and unscientific-a tax on the