OCR Text |
Show The Plight of the Taxpayer The extent to which taxation is retarding present efforts ef-forts toward recovery is clearly set forth by Dr. Kay E. Un-tereiner, Un-tereiner, assistant professor of economics at California Institute In-stitute of Technology, in his illuminating little volume, "The Tax Racket," just published by J. E. Lippincott. "At the present moment," says Dr. Untcreiner, "government "govern-ment retrenchment is a fact. The taxation peak was reached in 1921), with eleven and a half bilions of tax dollars publicly public-ly spent. Today, the annual total has dropped to around nine billions. "And yet the public outcry against excessive taxation has steadily increased. . . . The reason is, that the effective effec-tive burden of taxation today is much more onerous than it was in 1029. . . . "In 1929, government took more dollars than ever before be-fore in our peace-time history; but it took them from a national income of from 80 to 95 billions of dollars. The per capita tax of $94.37, taken from a per capita income of approximately $750, represented less than 12'2 Per cent of income, and left $650 for private purchases. Today, the per capita tax has fallen to $75, but the national income has fallen to around 40 billions, or $333 per capita. The $75 taken bv government, therefore, represents almost 25 per cent of all the average individual has to spend, and leaves him only $258 for private expenditure. Then Dr. Untereincr pictures what would happen if America had a general "social budget," with no more than 10 per cent allotment for governmental services. "Then taxation should take only 10 per cent," he says, "and public budgets should be revised downward or upward ' as rapidly as national income falls or rises. The present arrangement of relatively fixed charges for government results re-sults in an increasing proportion of income being required for governmental services, at the very time when we can least afford those services. "If the cost of government had followed the trend of national income since 1929, the total tax burden today would be five billions instead of nine billions annually, and the per capita cost of govermental service $42 instead of $75. The additional $33 left for private expenditure would per- ; mit a standard of living 12 12 per cent higher than is now ' possible. As Dr. Untcreiner says, limiting government to its proper share of the national income will be "no easv task, but the necessity is sufficient to justify drastic expedients." |