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Show is rr right? . .At the recnt convention of the Farm Mortgage Bankers Assn., of America, it was shown that there are over $20,000,000,000 of j United States securities and $8,000,000,000 of state and municipal i securities outstanding of the "tax-exempt" variety. j In other words the income from nearly $30,000,000,000 of American wealth is escaping taxation which must be paid on income j from other investments and returns from labor or services rendered. This condition is an evil in itself, but it is not the worst. ' The evil is growing. In 1912 the state and municipal issues of tax-free ! securities amounted to about $400,000,000; in 1916 to about j $500,000,000; in 1 920 to $773,000,000. Last year's issues rose to $1,300,000,000. and this year's will be little short of $2,000,000-000. $2,000,000-000. What the mortgage bankers emphisizc over and over again is that these growing sums are being taken almost daily from busy ! hands that produce the wealth of the country and placed in the rand of officials who simply scatter wealth abroad. - What justice is there in allowing the holders of some $30,000-000,000 $30,000-000,000 of public bonds to escape tax-free on the income derived therefrom while the man who works or maintains a business must account for every penny that he makes and pay taxes on the same, including additional taxes to make up the amounts lost to the government gov-ernment through the tax-exemption loop-hole favoring the holder of government occuritieg. |