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Show THE GAS TAX AND OTHERS. During 191)1, according to the American Am-erican Petroleum Institute, efforts will be made to increase the gasoline tax in at least sixteen states. In 1930 the public paid $525,000,000- in gas taxes, establishing a new high record $73,000,000 above the 1020 total. Even in depression years the tax collector prospers! At present, in a typical state, about 20 per cent of the retail price of gasoline gas-oline goes to government. The public is willing to pay a reasonable gas tax but there is constant con-stant pressure to increase this tax just as there is constant pressure to increase every other tax. At the 15th annual convention of the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers, Treasur-ers, held in New York recently, W. S. Johnson, state treasurer of West Virginia, said states must learn to live within their income the same as the frugal housewife does in the home. "I am convinced," he continued, "that at least forty cents of every tax dollar in the United States is wasted." The average wage earner, he declared, de-clared, contributes one day's work each week for taxes. Individual and business institutions last year had a total income of over $87,000,000,000, of which $13,000,000,000 was taken for taxes according to Mr. Johnson. Governments are over-manned by 25 per cent, he said, and one person out of every ten works for government, national, state and locaL The people will never get tax relief re-lief so long as they acquiesce quietly to tax increases, or accept new methods me-thods of taxation which, in reality, are a sort of legislative buck-passing. Taking a tax dollar off one kind of property and putting it on another benefits no one in the long run. |