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Show TAXES HIT EVEUYUODY We would be a lot beiier off if all! paople could get firmly established) in iheir minds the truth of the statement state-ment made by President Coolidge that "taxes hit everybody." The man who pays taxes to the collector ana gets a receipt made oui in his name is not the only taxpayer. In one way or another he passes part of the tax on to some one else. If he noted that tax every time he passed it on, and gave the new payer a receipt the fact would be universally recognized. But ihe indirect tax is covered and. therefore, there-fore, usually unnoticed. The National association of real estate boards recently figured that more than 12 per cent of the amount of money paid for rent goes to taxes. That is, the owner of a building pays the tax directly and then adds the tax on the rent he charges and collects. col-lects. The tenant really does the paying. pay-ing. The owner acts as a private collector col-lector of the tax and hands it over to the public collector. Any tenant can figure out what this means to him. Of course, conditions condi-tions differ in different cities, where there are varying tax rates. But, on an average, if a man pays $600 a year for rent, about $75 of that is on account of the taxes on the building. Now, if the tenant were called upon to dig up 7 5 dollars every year and hand it to the public collector, he would raise a great howl about taxes tax-es .But he pays it as rent to the private pri-vate collector, and then raises a big how labout rent. He ought to have the business sense to look further and register about 12 per cent of his howl against taxes. There cannot be too much emphasis empha-sis placed - upon the statement thai "taxes hit everybody," The political demagogue who tries to make you think that he is in favor of "taxing Ihe rich" is merely trying to- fool you. He may secure the enactment of a law that compels the rich man to jo to the tax collector and pay the money and get a receipt in his name, but. the rich man is not paying the tax. by any means, He may pay his proper share of it, but he passes the rest of it on to some one else, just as the landlord does. A. |