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29 Pol. Sci. Q. 1 (1914)

handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry29 and id is 1 raw text is: Volume XXIX] [ POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY THE FEDERAL INCOME TAX T HE enactment of the income-tax law of October 3, 1913 marks a new stage in the history of American finance. As in the case of England with its first income tax of 1798, our Civil War income tax was avowedly a temporary meas- ure ; and just as the English income tax was reintroduced in 1842 in order to make good the loss in revenue occasioned by the repeal of the Corn Laws, so the American law was enacted to compensate for the loss of revenue due to the new tariff. The English tax, indeed, was not intended to be a permanent part of the revenue system, but the force of circumstances soon gave it that position. The American tax, on the other hand, was designed from the very outset as an integral and perma- nent part of the fiscal arrangements. The chief argument which was responsible for the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment and for the enactment of the law was, as we have elsewhere pointed out, I that wealth is escaping its due share of taxation. Again and again in the course of the discussion attention was called to the fact that our federal system of taxes on expenditure puts an undue burden on the small man; and when the objection was made that the principle of ability to pay is recognized in state and local taxation, the ready answer was found that in actual practice our state and local rev- enue systems fail almost completely to reach those taxpayers who can best afford to contribute to the public burdens. It is true that some of the more extreme supporters of the income tax based their advocacy on the ground of opposition to the tariff Seligman, The Income Tax, 1911, p. 640. i Marck, 1914 [ Number i