Fiscal

“ The fiscal system aims at satisfying the financial needs of the State and other public bodies, as well as a fair partition of the incomes and the wealth. (2) Taxes are created by law, which determines the incidence rates, concessions, and safeguards for taxpayers. ”

“ The annual tax is, for domestic corporations, a specified percentage of the net income of the corporation for the next preceding fiscal or calendar year. By section 7 of the statute, 'net income' is defined as 'gross income' less certain allowed deductions, and section 6 provides that 'gross income * * * includes * * * all interest received from federal, state, municipal or other bonds. ”

“ That our finances are in a prosperous state notwithstanding the commercial derangements resulting from this calamity and from external embarrassments is a satisfactory manifestation of the great extent and solidity of the public resources. Connected with this situation of our fiscal concerns, the assurance that the legal provisions for obtaining revenue by direct taxation will fulfill the views of the Legislature is peculiarly acceptable. ”

“ A just system of taxation will take account of these variations in the valuations made by different classes of people, and adjust the fiscal burdens to the citizens by covering the costs of state-administration with contributions graduated accordingly. ”

“ The budget recommendations I shall shortly transmit to the Congress show that we can expect a substantial improvement in our fiscal position over the next few years, as the cost of some of our extraordinary postwar programs declines, and as the Government revenue rises as a result of growth in employment and national income. To further improve our fiscal outlook, we should make some changes in our tax system which will reduce present inequities, stimulate business activity, and yield a moderate amount of additional revenue. ”

“ The revenue acts since the Sixteenth Amendment have consistently assessed income taxes on the basis of annual accounting periods, either the calendar year or the different fiscal year which the taxpayer may adopt. ”

“ The primary power to raise taxes is vested exclusively in the State by means of law.
Fiscal power of Self-governing Communities and local authorities2. Self-governing Communities and local Corporations may impose and levy taxes, in accordance with the Constitution and the laws.
3. Any fiscal benefit affecting State taxes must be established by virtue of law. ”

“ Public Finance ‘Abdu’l-Bahá suggests that each town and village or district should be entrusted as far as possible with the administration of fiscal matters within its own area and should contribute its due proportion for the expenses of the general government. One of the principal sources of revenue should be a graduated income tax. ”

“ We can get them done, but only in the context of a realistic, responsible, balanced budget, one that maintains our fiscal discipline and makes the most of this great moment of prosperity. Now, that's a budget that makes sense, one that works for working Americans. ”

“ Much more suitable, therefore, for the purposes of fiscal administration are bonds which are not limited as to term of payment, but which can be redeemed at their face value at the will of the Government. ”

“ These forms of taxation extend over and reach many of the same persons and incomes as do ultimately the impersonal taxes. But the summation of personal incomes gives the necessary condition for applying the principle of progression so far as this is, by public opinion, deemed desirable either for fiscal or for social reasons. ”

“ Owing to the many necessary burdens assumed by Congress in previous years which now require large outlays, it is with extreme difficulty that we shall be able to keep the expenditures for the next fiscal year within the bounds of the present year. Economies in many directions have permitted some accommodation of pressing needs, the net result being an increase, as shown above, of about one-tenth of 1 per cent above the present fiscal year. ”

“ My friends, I'm convinced that with your help we can succeed on both these issues, giving the people tax reform and the Government a sense of fiscal responsibility. Together, we'll build on the economic successes we've already achieved and lead America on into a new era of opportunity and growth. ”

“ Now, it is true that when it comes to our budget, we have real challenges to meet. And if we’re serious about getting our fiscal house in order, we’ll need to make some tough choices. I’m prepared to make those choices. ”

“ A Financial and Fiscal Commission, in which each province shall be represented, shall recommend equitable fiscal and financial allocations to the provincial and local governments from revenue collected nationally, after taking into account the national interest, economic disparities between the provinces as well as the population and developmental needs, administrative responsibilities and other legitimate interests of each of the provinces. ”

“ But though this wider employment of direct taxation—a characteristic of European finance generally—reduced the relative position of the taxation of commodities, there was a growth in the absolute amount obtained from this category of duties. There were also considerable alterations, the result of changes in the views respecting fiscal policy. At the close of the Great War the excise duties were at first retained, and even in some cases increased. After some years reforms began. The following articles amongst others were freed from charge: salt (1825) ; leather and candles (1830) ”

“ We should be following an almost universal example of modern governments if we were to draw the greater part or even the whole of the revenues we need from the income taxes. By somewhat lowering the present limits of exemption and the figure at which the surtax shall begin to be imposed, and by increasing, step by step throughout the present graduation, the surtax itself, the income taxes as at present apportioned would yield sums sufficient to balance the books of the Treasury at the end of the fiscal year 1917 without anywhere making the burden unreasonably or oppressively heavy. ”

“ How can limited government and fiscal restraint be equated with lack of compassion for the poor? How can a tax break that puts a little more money in the weekly paychecks of working people be seen as an attack on the needy?
Since when do we in America believe that our society is made up of two diametrically opposed classes— one rich, one poor — both in a permanent state of conflict and neither able to get ahead except at the expense of the other? Since when do we in America accept this alien and discredited theory of social and class warfare? ”

“ This budget will help ease pressures in our credit and capital markets. It will enhance the confidence of people all over the world in the strength of our economy and our currency and in our individual and collective ability to be fiscally responsible. ”

“ The appreciation has slowed export volume growth, but since 2004, Brazil's growth has yielded increases in employment and real wages. The resilience in the economy stems from commodity-driven current account surpluses, and sound macroeconomic policies that have bolstered international reserves to historically high levels, reduced public debt, and allowed a significant decline in real interest rates. A floating exchange rate, an inflation-targeting regime, and a tight fiscal policy are the three pillars of the economic program. ”

“ Sufficient revenue to pay all the expenses of the Federal Government, economically administered, including pensions, interest and principal of the public debt, can be got under our present system of taxation from custom-house taxes on fewer imported articles, bearing heaviest on articles of luxury, and bearing lightest on articles of necessity. ”

“ The difficulties of a fair income tax have elicited a proposition for a direct tax of so much per cent, not on income but on expenditure; the aggregate amount of each person's expenditure being ascertained, as the amount of income now is, from statements furnished by the contributors themselves. ”

“ Thus land-rents, annuities, interest of money, emoluments of offices, salaries, even wages of servants, in short, every fixed income, I range in this first article, which I call annual income, produced from a capital already formed, either real or supposed.
This may be laid under taxation by a pound-rate, or otherwise, and forms that kind of tax which I call cumulative and arbitrary; because a man who has any sort of visible revenue, comes under this general rate, let him have ever so many necessary deductions out of it, ever so many debts and incumbrances. ”

“ The second practical problem encountered is when we attempt to apply the faculty principle in practice; how is ability to be measured? Three measures have been suggested: expenditure, income, and property. Expenditure is open to the objection that it would place an unduly large proportion of the tax burdens on the poor, whose expenditures are larger in proportion to their means than those of other classes of society. Property is objected to [Pg 156] because large classes of society, including professional men with large incomes, would then escape taxation largely or altogether. ”

“ CHAPTER XVII. Government Revenue and Expenditure.
Government is an enormous business enterprise, maintained and operated by its citizens, that certain duties of a general interest and benefit may be performed. The magnitude of the work performed necessarily requires the expenditure of vast sums of money. The chief source from which these sums are derived is taxation. Taxes have been defined to be "the legally determined and legally collected contributions of individuals for meeting the necessary and general expenses of the State." ”

“ Finance.—Revenue for state, county and municipal purposes is derived principally from taxes on real estate, tangible personal property, incomes in excess of $1000, wills and administrations. deeds, seals, lawsuits, banks, trust and security companies, insurance companies, express companies, railway and canal corporations, sleeping-car, parlour-car and dining-car companies, telegraph and telephone companies, franchise taxes, poll taxes, an inheritance tax and taxes on various business and professional licences. ”

“ All income and expenditure of the State must be pre-estimated for every year, and be presented in the Budget, which shall be annually fixed by a law. Article 100. Taxes and dues for the State Treasury may only be raised in so far as they shall have been included in the Budget or ordained by special laws. Article 101. In the matter of taxes there must be no privilege of persons. Existing tax-laws shall be subjected to a revision, and all such privileges abolished. Article 102. State and Communal officers can only levy dues on the strength of a law. ”

“ The state legislature biennially fixes the rate of taxes for state purposes; the amount of this levy is now limited by the Constitution to 21/2 mills on the dollar. The board of county commissioners fixes the rate of county taxes and levies those taxes; and the county treasurer collects the taxes of the state and those of the county. Among the other sources of revenue are a poll-tax of two dollars on each man between the ages of twenty-one and sixty, licences, an inheritance tax, rent of state lands and the income from invested funds received from the sale of state lands. ”

“ Bills for increased revenue were hurriedly introduced, and new taxes were loaded upon the broad shoulders of the millionaires of the nation;—taxes on checks, taxes on certificates of incorporation, taxes on deeds and mortgages, taxes on pleasure yachts, taxes on private parks and plaisances, taxes on wills of all property above $5,000 in value, taxes on all gifts of realty for and in consideration of natural love and affection, taxes on all passage tickets to foreign lands, and double taxes on the estates of all absentees on and after the lapse of six months. ”

“ Unlike fees, they are levied upon real estate and are applied for the purpose of enhancing the value of that real estate. See Tax and Taxation.
(4) Taxes. — In the three kinds of payment thus far discussed, there is in general a direct benefit to the individual, and the payment is only made in exchange for a direct service of the State. In this they differ radically from taxes. The latter are forced contributions to the public treasury. In practice, as in the most advanced financial theory, taxes rest upon the duty of citizens to support the State. ”

“ He said that, so far as he had been able to form an opinion, there had been a general concurrence in a belief that the ultimate sources of public contributions were labor, and the subjects and effects of labor; that taxes, being permanent, had a tendency to equalize, and to diffuse themselves through a community. According to these opinions, a capitation tax, and taxes on land, and on property and income generally, were a direct charge, as well in the immediate as ultimate sources of contribution. He had considered those, and those only, as direct taxes in their operation and effects. ”

“ As I am pledged to economy in my requests for funds, so you are pledged to economy in the expenditure of the funds which may be granted by Congress. No longer are the funds appropriated by Congress regarded as the minimum amount which is to be expended. Every dollar that is saved by careful administration adds to the amount by which taxes may be reduced in the future. It is practical economy which I have in mind and which we must practice. ”

“ The gross income of a given year includes rents, dividends, wages, and salaries, profits from the transaction of business or sale of property and all other gains, profits, or income derived from any source except such as are specifically exempted. In ascertaining taxable income each tax payer is entitled to deduct from gross receipts wages, salaries, and other expenses of conducting a business, occupation, or profession, depreciation, also cost of property sold. ”