Henderson daily dispatch. (Henderson, N.C.) 1914-1995, 1936-05-28

| place of the sales tax which it had
previously repealed, has now enacted
sales taxes of varying degrees and per
centages on the following: soft drinks
automobiles, ice cream, cigarettes,
| cosmetics, theater tickets, and many
! other similar articles. The tax on new
automobiles, for instances, is three
per cent of the purchase price and
must be paid direct to the revenue
department before a license can be
obtained to operate it. Thus the tax
on an automobile costing $1,000 is $50
in addition to the cost of the license
and must be paid before the car can
be operated in Kentucky, regardless
of where the car was purchased.
Not Enough Money.
But all of these separate luxury"
taxes did not begin to yield enough
revenue to fill up the hole left by the
repeal of the general sales tax. So it
increased the taxes on both beer and
whiskies-and liquor is to Kentucky
what tobacco is to North Carolina,
one Of it's largest industries. Liquor
is also sold at retail as we'll as at
wholesale. But still that did not pro-
vide enough revenue. So the taxes
were increased on electricity, gas,
water, telephOneS-all of the utilities
which in turn means that the users
of these services are now having to
pay more for them, as the taxes are
passed on to the public. The legisla-
ture even decided to use the drivers
licenses law as a revenue instead of a
safety measure, and increased the
0-f &c 6Y.ix n
get more revenue-an additional tax
on the automobile owners.
Merchants Are Complaining.
But still enough revenue has not
been found to make up for the rev.
enue lost as a result of the repeal OF
the sales tax and Governor Happy"
Chandler is not so happy as he was
before he was elected and is suspect |
ed of having both a headache and a
hangover following his anti-sales tax
spree, according to the most recent
reports from Kentucky. Already there
are serious doubts as to whether all
the new sales taxes and higher taxes
on the utilities corporations will yield |
as much as is claimed-$12, 500 900 a. |
year-while it is conceded that these
new taxes are going to work irrepar-
able damage to many Of the particu-
lar groups, such as the dairymen and |
ice cream manufacturers, the bottlers,
the automobile dealers, theatre, own
ers, drug store operators and so forth.
The merchants who complained about |
the old sales tax and that it drove
business out of the state and into
Ohio, are now complaining even more
loudly about the flock of new sales
taxes The automobile dealers are es-
pecially aroused at the prospect of
their customers having to pay from
500 to $40 as a luxury tax every
time they buy a new car 5efore they
can get a license to drive it in Ken
lucky. They would be only too glad
to go back to the old general sales
tax again.
Mcdonald Sources.
DR.. Mcdonald maintains of course,
that there are enough additional tax
here in North Carolina from
which to raise $20,OOO,0OO to $30,OO0,-
900 in new revenue he proposes to
raise, without having to resort to any
form of sales tax He does propose,
however, to greatly increase the taxes
on all the corporations, the power
companies, the gas companies, the
telephone companies, the bottling com
panies, the tobacco companies, the