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Who pays your taxes? : a consideration of the question of taxation / by David A. Wells, George H. Andrews, Thomas G. Sherman, Julien T. Davies, Joseph Dana Miller, Bolton Hall, and others
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WHO PAYS YOUR TAXES>

other man to be an assessor or collector. It is not prob-able that the work could then be accomplished with ac-curacy. The average consumption of every inhabitant ofthis State, annually, is at least $200, or in the aggregate

say $1,ZUU,UUU,W0 , and this immense amount would fail

to be taxed if the assessment was made at the end of theyear, and not daily, as fast as consumption followed pro-duction. All this complicated machinery of infinitesimaltaxation and mediaeval inquisition is to be brought intorequisition for the purpose of taxing money property,which is nothing but a myth. The money lender partswith his property to the borrower, who puts it in theform of new buildings or other improvements, upon whichhe pays a tax. Is not one assessment on the same prop-erty sufficient? But if you insist upon another assess-ment on the money lender, it requires no prophetic powerto predict that he will call in his money and add the taxin his future transactions with borrowers. If a tax of tenper cent, was levied and enforced on every bill of goods,or note given for goods, the tax would be added to theprice of goods, and how would this form of tax be differ-ent from the tax on the goods?

The conclusions of the commissioners were in sub-stance that we should : First, Provide for the taxationof all corporations created which are in the nature of amonopoly. Of such corporations the gas company is thetype. It has practically no competitor in its district, andthe amount of capital involved, the preoccupation of the