Show THE INCOME TAX 1XIFORJr j There has been a great deal of unnecessary un-necessary argument over the question of class taxation in reference to the income in-come tax Senator Edmunds is considered j con-sidered to have made a poor argument j against the constitutionality of the tax One of his chief objections to it was j that in the income tax provision Congress Con-gress endeavored to divide the upper from the lower middle class financially finan-cially speaking in the larger cities or to divide the middle class from the wealthy in the same districts At first sight this looks to be a I pretty sharp point But it is dulled when run against existing differences in general systems of taxation It Is I I true that ail duties imports and excises ex-cises must be uniform throughout the United States in order to be constitutional con-stitutional But the term uniform has a different application to that which some people wish it to bear and which Senator Edmunds tries to attact to it If a tax were Imposed which would require persons similarly situated to pay taxes at different rates it would be open to the charge that It was not uniform A poll tax is considered a strictly uniform tax Yet persons above or below a given age are exempt ex-empt Internal revenue is derived from taxes paid by certain classes of the community Property holders pay taxes which nonproperty holders are not required to pay If the tax is uniform as to the taxpaying class it is uniform in the meaning of the law Taxing Incomes of 4000 a year and upward Is a uniform tax if two percent per-cent Is the demand on all persons having hav-ing such an income And the exemption exemp-tion of the people whose Income falls below that amount does not affect the uniformity of the tax upon all whose incomes are above the line of the law In one sense of the term class taxation taxa-tion is common in every civilized country That is to say there are classes which have to pay certain taxes and others that do not In the absolute abso-lute sense uniformity or equality of taxaJtion that is the same application to and requirement of every Individual is an utter impossibility Division of a community into classes for the purposes pur-poses of taxation which is uniform a to each class Is recognized everywhere as one of the legitimate powers of I government I The cry that this will make class I distinctions which are discordant with Republican principles is misleading The requirement that only men between be-tween the ages of 21 and 45 shall serve in the militia or work out or pay a poll tax makes no such class distinction distinc-tion as that objected to And the income in-come tax exemption is no more a class distinction than either of the others Opponents of the income tax will have to find some other grounds on which to fight it than those that are urged by organs of the wealthy classes who are the best able to bear the burdens of the expense of government and who usually escape from contributing con-tributing their just proportion guaged jy their ability to pya The income tax is a just impost and ought to be cheerfully paid by the people upon whom It is to be levied and who are abundantly able to do so without privation pri-vation and without distress |