Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/771

 THE SINGLE TAX: WHAT AND WHY 751

a pure delusion. The number of the rich is always and every- where small ; and their total consumption is therefore small. There is no country in the world which has ever been able to raise one-tenth of its income from indirect taxes out of articles consumed only by the rich.

While indirect taxation thus presses most heavily and unjustly upon the poor, it also affords continual opportunities for fraud and evasion. As the special advocates of indirect taxation are the loudest in their complaints on this score, it cannot be necessary to give illustrations. The only method by which it is even pretended that this injustice can be avoided is by the sys- tem of so-called specific duties, that is, taxing everything by the pound, gallon, or yard, without regard to its cost. This method is largely resorted to, all over the world, with the obvious result of adding tremendously to the burdens of the poor; since, when clothing is taxed by the yard, it is obvious that the poor woman's cloth, costing twenty-five cents a yard, must pay as much as the rich woman's cloth, costing five dollars.

Thus all methods of indirect taxation resolve themselves into a choice between allowing governments to rob the poor, or allowing shrewd taxpayers to rob the government. Of the gen- eral demoralization among business men, caused by the enor- mous premium on fraud which is offered by these methods of tax- ation, much might be said; but, unhappily, the entire business com- munity is so accustomed to the spectacle, if not to the practice, of such fraud, that conscience is nearly dead upon the subject.

The income tax is sometimes held up as the ideal method. But the only income tax concerning which Americans have ever known anything or are willing to learn anything is one which offers a premium to fraud, vastly exceeding that of any other form of taxation. When the income tax expired, in 1872, false returns had become so general as to make the returns ridicu- lous. Even in Great Britain, where far more stringent methods are employed by the government than are possible here, owing to the concentration of population there, it is officially estimated that no more than two-thirds of the proper amount of income tax is collected from those who make sworn returns.