Direct Taxation

Two principal objections are urged against an income tax. One is that it is inquisitorial and the other that it cannot be collected. Let us s?e. The favorito sjTstem of raising reverme in this country is by tariff duties. The income tax is meant to take the place of excessive tariff exactions. Is it more inquisitorial than a systern which opens every trunk, explores the stock of underwear, turns it out on the doek and compels even refined and delicate womeu to exposé to rude official gaze the reservationa of the toilet itself? Is it inore inquisitorial than a system which plants spies all over Europe and sends them on board transatlantic steamers to worm themselves into and betray the confidence of their f ellow passengers? 13 it more inquisitorial than a system which claims and exercises the right to subject even the persons of travelers to search? All that an income tax system aska is an honest report of each rnan's earnings over and above exemptions. It does not publish the facts. It does not in any way invade the home, the wardrobe or the person of the taxpayer. But the income tax cannot be collected, we are tóld. Is that a f act? It was collected from 1803 to 1870. During those eight yeara it yielded revenue to t.Vlñ rnvprnTnPTlt. n 1863 82,741,858 2c 1804 20,294,771 7J 1865 82,050,010 44 1860 72.082,153 03 1887 66,014,425 34 1808 41,455,598 30 1869 34,791,859 84 18T0 37,775,871 C2 During this period the law was several times ctianged, usually in ways to leasen its exactions, yet in each form that ifc took it showed a tendency te produce a, steadily increasing revenue, though that revenue rnight be less than under the preceding and more exigent law. Even so crude an income tas law as that which was in force from 1868 to 1870 yielded an average annual revenue of about $50,000,000, which is just about the amonnt now needed to meet the deficiency created by the effort to lessen the taxes upon the necessaries of lif e and to set manufactures free from the burdens of taxed raw materials. To say that such a tax cannot be collected is to deny the facts of history and to maintain awholly groundlessassumption. It is also to ignore other facts open to every man's observatiori. The majority of the incomes to be taxed are perfectly easy of ascertainment. The earnings of corporations are matters of compulsory record. Taxes assessed upon dividends will be paid to the last cent. All great mercantile and manufacturing enterprises have their results recorded in systematic book accounts. A great multitude of those to be taxed receive their incomes in the form of salaries or wages, easily ascertainable. It is difficult to conceive of a tax which presents fewer difficulties of assessment and collection. it is tne lairest ana least Durdensome of all taxes. It is immeasurably less inquisitorial than are the levies it is meant toreplace. Finally, it is a tax more easily collected upon a basis of equity than any other that is capable of yielding so large a reverme.-