The Income Tax Law

The long erpected decisión of rh Supreine court as bo the eonsrirutiou ality of the inoome tax law, passed l the last oongress, has ñnally bee handed down. The court holds tha the provisions of the statnje relating to the taxation of incoraes froni interest ■apon state and municipal banks and real estates are unconstitutional, The reniaining features of the law are sustained by au equally devided court. that is, by the failure of the court, because of a tie, to reverse the decisión of the lower court. As the law stands now, it will not be satisfactory to anybody. The fact that the receivers of rent, in other words, the wealthy are, exempted from the pi'ovisions of the law ; while the payers of rent, they who are less able to pay the tax. il their incomes are in exeoss of the $4000 limt, will have to put up 2 per cent. of the excess, wil] make the law odious from the start. AecordinK tn rhc laM censas one-third of the farmers pay rent, and Üireefonrths of the people in oities of 100,000 population and uwpards. All these with au income of more thau 4000 will be snbject to tlie tax while those who receive these rentáis will go scot free.' It is estimated-that the decisión will depri vc the government of at least onethii-d and possibly, one-half the revenue that was expected from this source. Then the failure of tlie court to sustaiu the principal features of thé law by a direct or majority decisión leaves them in the same condition as thoxigh they had not been considered at all. This will surely result in endless litigation and pfobably in practical nullification of the act , and thus will the wealth of the country again escape the payment of its just share of the expenses of government. The law was framed to compel wealth to bear a lai-ger and juster share of the burden of public taxation, but the decisión of the court sqniuts strongly in the opposite direction by exempting from its provisions, landlords and bondholders. Had the aim of the court been to rnake the law obnoxious in the eyes of the people, no decisión conld have been rendered better caleulatod to do it.