OCR Text |
Show "THE UNTAXED AMERICAN IS A MYTH" Here is a statement by Dr. William Bennett Munro of the Executive Council of the California Institute of Technology, that .should be firmly implanted in the mind of every American: "The untaxed American is a myth. No one who occupies property, owns a car, smokes tobacco, drinks beer, g-oes to the theatre, eats thee meals a day, rides on a street car or goes through the other motions of daily life gets by untaxed. Yet there are people who think themselves non-taxpayers when at least ten per cent of their earnings go for taxes. They are victims of the great American delusion. Of itself government earns no money. Every dollar that it gets for its support must come from someone who doest the earning. To do this it must tax production, produc-tion, all production, which means that both producer and consumer con-sumer is paying the bills." Dr. M,unro might have added that it is the consumer who invariably in-variably bears the greater share of the burden our industries, Tiuch as they would like to, have no magic means of conjuring money from air. Every expense of operation, whether it be materials, ma-terials, labor, rent or taxes, must be included in the cost of the finished product. The buyer always pays. And today, with the cost of all forms of government soaring, he pays more in taxes for each dollar he earns than he ever did before. :. If these indirect taxes were paid directly there would be a howl of anguish from one end of the country to another. Taxpayers Tax-payers in all walks of life would band together to demand more efficient and less expensive government. And a similar result will follow when the people learn that indirect taxes can be as ex- ' . ' . pensive as direct taxes1 even more expensive, as heavier levies ' can be exacted without the public knowing it. ' '. " In brief, when the actual facts concerning taxation are known, there may be a change from the intolerable conditions of the present. Industrial News Survey. ' . . r |