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Soaking the Poor
To meet his huge running expenses Uncle Sam already has been forced to attach considerable of the incomes of us fellows ' in the lower income groups. Ap- * parently, we “ain’t seen nothin’ yet” By the time this appears in print the elongated chap with the chin whiskers will tie reaching still further into the pockets of - American workersr. 7 ~ " :
In 1939, a married man with an income of $2,500 a year was exempt from Federal taxation and ■was able to keep all his earnings. In the current fiscal year, he is compelled to work 22 days to pay— his Federal income tax.. In the next fiscal year he will sweat for a longer period for his greedy, squandering government. - Of course, the wealthy chap really gets taken to the cleaners. A pea-son in $100,000 class works nearly one half of his time for _ the government, or more than three times as long as a person with a $5,000 income who toils ONLY 34 days to meet his income tax bill.
The progressive rate of taxation now in effect is socialistic in concept and communistic in result Bradford B. Smith, Economist for the United States Steel Corporation, most aptly stated the case against progressive taxation when he pointed out: , _— “There is no justification In the morals or in the principles of individual liberty for progressiva taxation. It is simply looting through law of the more productive by the more numerous but less productive. Its appeal is demagogic, and its result is communism, which in turn is but a transitory, stage in the'evolution away from liberty into distatorship.*’
This looting of the wealthy is not only unjust but it impairs incentive. Further, the revenue to' ' be obtained from this source is . comparatively small. If all the V personal taxable'income of. $25,000 a year or Over were confisv cated by the government, the amount would be sufficient to pay the current running expenses of * the Federal government for only about ten. days. One does not have to be the seventh son of a • seventh son to divine that as our . tax burdens expand, we poorer folks will be forced to spend an , increasing number of days working for the government.
Our poor, unfortunate British ^ --eeusias have had a most u£pless» • ant taste of progressive taxation. In Great Britain the' tax burden is being shifted to the lower income groups.- In 1938 the lower V'V lBcom« group contributed only about 20 per cent of total perso“I income taxes; in 1949 this hsd ; increased sharply to 40 per cent.
■England has practically destroyj:i. her high income group just as "-y* 5* w® *n the process of doing ■< Mre in the United States of “jnoriea. Far example, the Britiah group with incomes of $50,000 *’ or over contributed over 80 per . «f total personal income taxes in 1088; in 1940 this had
propped to 18 per cent and is still ■■ falling.
England’s experisaee is a dbu v warning to ns as ws are travelV. fown the saaM road to insol▼eacy. England la just a abort way ahead of us. Wo auist stop dortroying our high income group*
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