Page:Report of the Tax Commission to Governor Angus Wilton McLean, 1927.pdf/17

Rh There will be embodied in this report surveys covering the following subjects:


 * The Taxation of Agriculture;
 * The Taxation of City Real Estate;
 * The Taxation of Public Service Corporations;
 * The Taxation of Intangible Personal Property;
 * The Taxation of Banks;
 * Tax Administration and Tax Delinquency;
 * The Inheritance of Estates Tax;
 * The Income Tax;
 * The Taxation of Highway Advertising Signs;
 * Tax Levies and Indebtedness, 1928—State and Local;
 * Comparative Burdens of Taxation.

The information contained in these reports is commended to the careful consideration of members of the General Assembly and of the taxpayers of the state.

A careful analysis of these reports will be convincing that the tax burden bears heavily upon every class of property and industry in the state, and that the use of credit, which means higher taxes, should not be further employed by the state, or by local units of government, except in the case of grave public necessity.

One may not rightly say that the state has reached the legal limit of its ability to impose taxes. It has not. But there are practical considerations almost as imperative as legal limitations. The state's general fund revenue depends mainly upon taxes upon organized industry—its income and franchise taxes. However heavily the general property tax for local purposes may bear upon the property of the average citizen—the farmer and the home-owner—it bears at the same rate of tax and in equal proportion upon the property of the business and the industrial corporation; and the corporation franchise and income taxes levied by the state are in addition to the same proportion of property tax burden for local purposes borne by the average taxpayer. Our tax upon income includes "income from property that is taxed," which was made possible by amendment of the Constitution of 1920. The fact that it is in the nature of double taxation, superimposed for state revenue upon income from property already heavily taxed for local purposes, should be convincing that the rates of tax must be reasonable.

There is also the important practical consideration that the growth of industry may be retarded in any state that may become