Surplus revenue

“ Of late the public revenues have far exceeded that limit, and unless checked by. appropriate legislation such excess will continue to increase from year to year. For the fiscal year ended June 30, 1881, the surplus revenue amounted to $100,000,000; for the fiscal year ended on the 30th of June last the surplus was more than one hundred and forty-five millions. ”

“ Finally, along with funding our priorities and paying down debt, my plan returns about one out of every four dollars of the surplus to the American taxpayers, who created the surplus in the first place. A surplus in tax revenue, after all, means that taxpayers have been overcharged. ”

“ The surplus revenue of the last five years has been the natural result of the fiscal reforms of 1844, which have extended commerce and promoted internal prosperity, at the same time that their success has paved the way for further and more extensive reforms in the same direction. ”

“ Every person knows that the present year is no criterion for estimating the revenue; excess of paper issues has inflated all business, and led to excess in all branches of the revenue; next year it will be down, and soon fall as much below the usual level as it now is above it. More than that; what is now called a surplus in the treasury is no surplus, but a mere accumulation for want of passing the appropriation bills. ”

“ I started, however, with the simple notion that rates must be reduced,—but soon came to the conclusion that such reduction might be carried to a considerable extent not only without loss to the revenue, but with positive benefit; that a larger reduction might be made without loss, and a still larger without drawing upon the surplus beyond a reasonable extent. ”

“ A steady and constant Revenue drawn from sources that represent the prosperity of the nation,—a Revenue that grows with the growth of national wealth, and is so adjusted to the expenditures, [Pg 445] that a constant and considerable surplus is annually left in the Treasury above all the necessary current demands, a surplus that keeps the Treasury strong, that holds it above the fear of sudden panic, that makes it impregnable against all private combinations, that makes it a terror to all stock-jobbing and gold-gambling,—this is financial health. ”

“ Under our present revenue system there is every probability that there will continue to be a surplus beyond the wants of the Government, and it has become our duty to decide whether such a result be consistent with the true objects of our Government. ”

“ If the estimated revenue, after allowing for normal increase of the principal sources of income, be less than the estimated expenditure, this is deemed a case for the imposition of some new, or the increase of some existing, tax or taxes. On the other hand, if the estimated revenue shows a large surplus over the estimated expenditure, there is room for remitting or reducing some tax or taxes, and the extent of this relief is generally limited to the amount of surplus realized in the previous year. ”

“ In finance the most striking effect in America has, on the first view of it, certainly been good. It has enabled the Government to obtain and to keep a vast surplus of revenue over expenditure. Even before the civil war it did this—from 1837 to 1857. ”

“ The price paid to the farmer for his wool is the compound of the several revenues of the cultivator, the shepherd and the landlord. Although the farmer reckons as net produce only the surplus remaining after payment of his landlord and his servants in husbandry, yet to them these payments are items of revenue—rent to the one and wages to the other—to the one, the revenue of the land, to the other, the revenue of his industry. ”

“ That interest consists in the augmentation of profits in the form of dividends, and a large surplus revenue intrusted to their custody is but too apt to lead to excessive loans and to extravagantly large issues of paper. As a necessary consequence prices are nominally increased and the speculative mania very soon seizes upon the public mind. ”

“ I recommend that, keeping in view all these considerations, the increasing and unnecessary surplus of national income annually accumulating be released to the people by an amendment to our revenue laws which shall cheapen the price of the necessaries of life and give freer entrance to such imported materials as by American labor may be manufactured into marketable commodities. ”

“ My answer to that is, reduce internal revenue taxation until the present surplus is exhausted, and then endeavor so to arrange your tariff that you will not produce more than you need. I think the easiest question to grapple with on this earth is a surplus of money. ”

“ The money, it was decided, should come out of the Consolidated Fund, that being considered the simplest way of dealing with the matter, more especially as of late years there has been a considerable surplus of revenue over expenditure, and there appears to be every probability that that surplus will be sufficient to provide the amount required without increasing the burden of taxation. ”

“ The decline of the revenue is not fitful; it is regular. Our people are too apt to look at the state of the revenue merely in a financial point of view. If a surplus, take off taxes; if a deficiency, put them on. But the state of the revenue should also be considered as the index of the condition of the population. According to my impression, the condition of the people is declining ”

“ I think it's a reflection of the fact that previous surplus estimates were wrong, and they were wrong in the direction of being so conservative that growth continues. Even with diminished growth, surplus revenues continue to pour in at a rate higher than expected. Not to extend the seminar on economics, I'm sure we have bored all of whoever is no longer watching this briefing. But that is the economic reality of how revenues are coming in. And for the last five years in a row, revenues have come in far higher than all the estimators projected. ”

“ If the net earnings of any line fall below the stipulated rate in a particular half-year, the Government has to make good the deficit, while, if the earnings are in excess, the surplus is divided between the Government and the shareholders. ”

“ By it the taxes were imposed not for the legitimate purpose of raising revenue, but to afford advantages to favored classes at the expense of a large majority of their fellow-citizens. Those employed in agriculture, mechanical pursuits, commerce, and navigation were compelled to contribute from their substance to swell the profits and overgrown wealth of the comparatively few who had invested their capital in manufactures. ”

“ Of the net profits of persons in business, a part, as before observed, may be considered as interest on capital, and of a perpetual character, and the remaining part as remuneration for the skill and labor of superintendence. The surplus beyond interest depends on the life of the individual, and even on his continuance in business, and is entitled to the full amount of exemption allowed to terminable incomes. ”

“ Now industrial revenues come not only from the rents of forests, mines, docks, lands, and buildings, but from profits in the operation of industrial enterprises such as waterworks, railways, mines, and factories, and from interest on funds deposited in banks or otherwise invested. At present the industrial revenues of the aggregate governments of the United States (national, state, and municipal) amount to about a fifth of all revenue receipts. ”

“ Such deficits may be covered either by being regarded as a part of the investment and included in the capital upon which interest is allowed, or they may be carried until they can be written off when the earnings have so grown as to leave a surplus above a reasonable return on the investment that is large enough to permit it. When capitalized, they become a permanent charge on the consumers. ”

“ The revenue involves not only the supply of the treasury with money, but the question of protection to manufactures. On these connected subjects, therefore, Gentlemen, as I have promised to keep nothing back, I will state my opinions plainly, but very shortly.
I am in favor of such a revenue as shall be equal to all the just and reasonable wants of the government; and I am decidedly opposed to all collection or accumulation of revenue beyond this point. An extravagant government expenditure, and unnecessary accumulation in the treasury, are both, of all things, to be most studiously avoided. ”

“ Wages, profit, and rent, are the three original sources of all revenue, as well as of all exchangeable value. All other revenue is ultimately derived from some one or other of these.
Whoever derives his revenue from a fund which is his own, must draw it either from his labour, from his stock, or from his land. The revenue derived from labour is called wages; that derived from stock, by the person who manages or employs it, is called profit; that derived from it by the person who does not employ it himself, but lends it to another, is called the interest or the use of money. ”

“ The gross revenue of all the inhabitants of a great country comprehends the whole annual produce of their land and labour; the neat revenue, what remains free to them, after deducting the expense of maintaining, first, their fixed, and, secondly, their circulating capital, or what, without encroaching up [Pg 116] on their capital, they can place in their stock reserved for immediate consumption, or spend upon their subsistence, conveniencies, and amusements. Their real wealth, too, is in proportion, not to their gross, but to their neat revenue. ”

“ There is one, who furnishes a part of the capital or lends a part of the money by which it is carried on, and another, who carries it on with the addition of his own capital. Out of the surplus which remains after defraying expenses, an interest is paid to the money lender, for the portion of the capital furnished by him, which exactly agrees with the rent paid to the landlord; and the residue of that surplus constitutes the profit of the undertaker or manufacturer and agrees with what is denominated the ordinary profits on the stock of the farmer. ”

“ Moreover, the present method of collecting revenue under the income tax is speculative and uncertain, because the profits of industry and business, upon which the income tax is based, are subject to vast fluctuations. ”

“ The lowest rate, he tells us, at which advances used to be obtained from capitalists, even upon the land-tax, which seems to have been considered the surest part of the national revenue, was eight per cent., although repayment was made within the year, and premiums were generally granted to the subscribers. On anticipations of other taxes, counting premiums, discount, and interest, the public had sometimes to pay twenty, thirty, and even forty per cent. ”

“ It is held that the net profits are the earnings left on hand after charging off expenses, taxes and losses, if any, and carrying to surplus fund the amount required by the law, and that the surplus fund is not to be considered as net profits available for dividends, for, if it were, the Directors of a bank could at any time divide the surplus among the shareholders. ”

“ The chief source of revenue is from indirect taxes, which bring nearly 10,000,000, while the greatest expenditure is for the payment of the interest on the debt, which with the sinking fund demands upward of 7,000,000. ”

“ Besides this equivalent, which he gives for the portion of agricultural labor consumed by him, and this supply of manufactured commodities for his own consumption, he furnishes still a surplus, which compensates for the use of the capital advanced, either by himself or some other person, for carrying on the business. ”

“ Granting that a certain sum is required for the annual engagements and expenditure of the country, no wise statesman would abolish any source of revenue, without, at the same time, introducing another equivalent. Our error has been abolition without any equivalent at all. It is all very well to say, that by reducing import duties upon particular articles you stimulate the power of production: that stimulus may be given—individuals may in consequence be enriched—and yet still there is a defalcation of revenue. ”

“ Within the vitals of the economic system upon which it subsists the plutocracy has found a source of never-ending torment in the form of a constantly increasing surplus.
2. The Knotty Problem of Surplus
The present system of industry is so organized that the worker is always paid less in wages than he creates in product. A part of this difference between product and wages goes to the upkeep and expansion of the industry in which the worker is employed. Another part in the form of interest, dividends, rents, royalties and profits, goes to the owners of the land and productive machinery. ”

“ Nor is it only our revenue from duties that would be increased to an extent sufficient of itself, in a few years, to pay the principal and interest of the debt incurred in the construction of these works, but our internal revenue, also, would be prodigiously augmented. ”

“ In practice, the gross revenue is entered with other items of revenue in the National Accounts, and the gross expenditure with other items of general and non-productive expenditure, with the result that the net profits of the Post Office, in effect, become a source of general revenue, and are therefore applied in reduction of general taxation. ”

“ The annual revenue, after paying current expenditures, pensions, and the interest on the public debt, should furnish a moderate balance for the reduction of the principal; and that revenue, except so much as may be derived from a tax upon tobacco and liquors, should be raised by duties upon importations, the details of which should be so adjusted as to aid in securing remunerative wages to labor, and promote the industries, prosperity, and growth of the whole country. ”