Tax farmer

“ Notice, too, how every tax system now uppermost puts the heavy end of its incidence on the farmer. In the State, county, and township allotment of fiscal burdens the tax is direct. It falls upon what can be seen and discovered with greatest weight. But it never fails to discover the farmer. His broad acres can not be hidden or sworn away; while his neighbor, rich in personal holdings, can cunningly suspend his own tax by evasion—and sometimes by an artful change or confusion of residence—so as to add his tax, too, to the tax of the beridden farmer. ”

“ An equal land-tax, imposed indiscriminately and without any regard to the distinction of its quality, on all land cultivated, will raise the price of corn in proportion to the tax paid by the cultivator of the land of the worst quality. Lands of different quality, with the employment of the same capital, will yield very different quantities of raw produce. If on the land which yields a thousand quarters of corn with a given capital, a tax of 100l. be laid, corn will rise 2s. per quarter to compensate the farmer for the tax. ”

“ Corn being a commodity indispensably necessary to every one, little effect will be produced on the demand for it in consequence of a tax, and therefore the supply could not be long excessive, even if the producers had great difficulty in removing their capitals from the land; the price of corn therefore, will speedily be raised by taxation, and the farmer will be enabled to transfer the tax from himself to the consumer. ”

“ But often, after cutting his corn, he cannot start threshing for weeks, until indeed the tax-farmer deigns to take his due. His entire harvest is about to rot in the fields, and the tax-farmer, usually a grain merchant himself, takes advantage of this fact and compels him to sell at a low price. ”

“ As soon as the harvest time arrives, he ceases to be master of his estate, and sinks into the condition of a serf of the revenue officer, or of the farmer of the land revenue. It is true, that the government tax only amounts to a tenth of the gross produce of the soil; but, in virtue of this right to a tenth, government assumes the entire direction of all the agricultural operations relating to the crops, and the cultivator’s nine-tenths (for it is really a misnomer to call him proprietor) become a mere adjunct of the government tenth. ”

“ It was shown, in a former part of this inquiry, that before such application of capital could take place, the price of produce, compared with the instruments of production, must rise sufficiently to pay the farmer. But, if the increasing difficulties to be overcome are aggravated by taxation, it is necessary, that before the proposed improvements are undertaken, the price should rise sufficiently, not only to pay the farmer, but also the government. And every tax, which falls on agricultural capital, either prevents a proposed improvement, or causes it to be purchased at a higher price. ”

“ The tax in produce, however, which the farmer is to pay the state will be far more just and fair. Land will be classified according to productivity, and the farmer will never be called upon to furnish the state with a larger proportion of his crop than he can afford. On the other hand, farmers will not be allowed to keep the ownership of land which they do not use. If it is to the benefit of the community that land be drained, the owner will be called upon to drain it within a definite period. ”

“ If the profits of all trades were taxed, excepting the profits of the farmer, all goods would rise in money value, excepting raw produce. The farmer would have the same corn income as before, and would sell his corn also for the same money price; but as he would be obliged to pay an additional price for all the commodities, except corn, which he consumed, it would be to him a tax on expenditure. ”

“ A tax upon the product of land, whether vegetable, animal, or mineral, is in a certain sense, and perhaps within the decisions above mentioned, a tax upon the land. 'For,' as Lord Coke said, 'what is the land but the profits thereof?' But it seems to me that it could hardly be seriously claimed that a tax upon the crops and cattle of the farmer, or the coal and iron of the miner, though levied upon the property while it remained upon the land, was a direct tax upon the land. A tax upon the rent of land, in my opinion, falls within the same category. ”

“ Every owner of wealth will consider taxes connected with its possession a part of the cost of such wealth, and wherever possible in the conditions of the market will count a tax in the selling price. It is impossible to judge from the form of wealth or the nature of the service when the tax can be transferred to a final user. A farmer's wheat may be the source from which he pays the total cost of raising it, including taxes upon the land employed. If, in the condition of the wheat market, he has still a profit upon his management, he will assume that the wheat buyers have paid the taxes. ”

“ A poll tax, an income tax, a tax on the farm, or a tax on household goods and jewelry, is assumed to be paid by the owner or user, without reimbursement. But a tax on stock in trade—like the farmer's live stock—or upon the machinery of production or service—like railroads, insurance companies and banks—is assumed to be transferred as an additional expense to the one who finally enjoys the wealth. ”

“ The farmer would be a great gainer by the substitution of a single tax upon the value of land for all these taxes, for the taxation of land values would fall with greatest weight, not upon the agricultural districts, where land values are comparatively small, but upon the towns and cities where land values are high; whereas taxes upon personal property and improvements fall as heavily in the country as in the city. And in sparsely settled districts there would be hardly any taxes at all for the farmer to pay. ”

“ For these duties, however heavy, are still voluntary, and are paid by the merchant only in proportion to the quantity he buys; and as he buys only in proportion to his sale, he himself gives the law its particular application; but the farmer who is obliged to pay his rent at stated times, whether he sells or not, cannot wait till he can get his own price for his commodity: even if he is not forced to sell for mere subsistence, he must sell to pay the taxes; so that it is frequently the heaviness of the tax that keeps the price of corn low. ”

“ Yet, we cannot avoid noticing that the average value of farm lands in this country is estimated to have increased between 1900 and 1918 more than 200 per cent., that the value of farm products has been vastly enhanced, but that according to the latest published details of income tax returns, the farmer contributes but a very small percentage to the total income tax collected. Of twenty-two selected occupations the farmers' class contributes the least in the aggregate, although it is numerically the largest class in the country. ”

“ When the increased tax came to be levied, these lands were all thrown on the market. The depreciation in prices of these lands at first brought a considerable access of population, but this soon became checked, because the farmers found that on account of the loss of taxes on these lands, the rates had to be increased and the additional burden fell on the resident farmers. These in almost all cases owned considerable land they did not cultivate, but were saving for speculation or for their children. Often a farmer owing 160 acres, cultivated, but 40. ”

“ It operates as a tax on the produce of land, that is on commodities for the use of man, the same as those articles subject to duties of customs or excise. The landholder just feels as the brewer, distiller, or importer of foreign goods, he gets the tax reimbursed by the farmer, and the farmer is reimbursed by the consumer.
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a people their industry will be increased in the same proportion, unless their forces are exceeded, and then the operation is indeed very different. ”

“ The burden of taxation was crushing; a contemporary writer, a farmer of twenty-five years standing, [541] wrote that, with the land tax remaining the same, there was a high property tax, house and window taxes were doubled, poor rates in some places trebled, highway, church, and constable rates doubled and trebled, and there were oppressive taxes on malt and horses, both nags and farm animals. A man renting a farm at £70 and keeping two farm-horses, a nag, and a dog, would pay taxes for them of £5 0s. 6d., a fourteenth of his rent. [542] Indeed, poor rates of 16s. and 20s. ”

“ The National Government has almost entirely relieved the farmer from income taxes by successive tax reductions, but State and local taxes have increased, putting on him a grievous burden. A policy of rigid economy should be applied to State and local expenditures. This is clearly within the legislative domain of the States. The Federal Government has also improved our banking structure and system of agricultural credits. The farmer will be greatly benefited by similar action in many States. ”

“ They are not only taxed on personal property and improvements, which the owners of unused land escape, but their land is generally taxed at a higher rate than land held on speculation, simply because it is improved. But further than this, all taxes imposed on commodities, and especially the taxes which, like our protective duties, are imposed with a view of raising the prices of commodities, fall on the farmer without mitigation. For in a country like the448 United States, which exports agricultural produce, the farmer cannot be protected. Whoever gains, he must lose. ”

“ How does that tax work on you farmers? (Cheers.) You are charged to the income-tax in proportion to the amount of your rents, so that you do not pay it out of your profits. Now, I say that the continuance of that tax on the farmers, after the legislature has deprived them of the profits of their business, is a crying iniquity. ”

“ It cannot be levied to supply the community with provisions, for between that and farm-rent there is nothing in common; nor to pay for services and products,—for the proprietors, laboring like the others, have labored only for themselves. Finally, this tax is of no use to its recipients who, having harvested wheat enough for their own consumption, and not being able in a society without commerce and manufactures to procure any thing else in exchange for it, thereby lose the advantage of their income. ”

“ If the whole of the difference in the expense of raising corn in this country and in the corn countries of Europe was occasioned by taxation, and the precise amount of that taxation as affecting corn, could be clearly ascertained; the simple and obvious way of restoring things to their natural level and enabling us to grow corn, as in a state of perfect freedom, would be to lay precisely the same amount of tax on imported corn and grant the same amount in a bounty upon exportation. ”

“ It ought to be observed that the tax on land is a real duty on the produce. It is universally agreed, however, that nothing is so dangerous as a tax on corn paid by the purchaser: but how comes it we do not see that it is a hundred times worse when the duty is paid by the cultivator himself? ”

“ In this view, all taxes on farm servants, horses, or the implements of agriculture, are in reality land-taxes; the burden falling on the farmer during the currency of his lease, and on the landlord, when the lease comes to be renewed. In like manner all those improved implements of husbandry which save expense to the farmer, such as machines for threshing and reaping, whatever gives him easier access to the market, such as good roads, canals, and bridges, though they lessen the original cost of corn, do not lessen its market price. ”

“ Why not allow us to grow hops duty free? Why not relieve us of the malt-tax and of many other burdens? The answer is one familiar to us—the revenue would suffer in consequence. No doubt it would, and so it suffers from every commercial change. But these [Pg 382] changes have now gone so far, that—especially if you abolish this protective duty upon corn—we are entitled to demand a return from the present cumbrous, perplexing, and expensive mode of taxation, to the natural cheap and simple one of poll or property-tax. At present no man knows what he is paying towards the expense of government. ”

“ Yet probably the fact is the same in both cases, that the owner of the land has his profits diminished by the actual amount of the tax. More strictly, the tax is taken from the rent of his land. In any case of over-production, when land gives no rent, the tax will be paid by the producer out of other income. So far, however, as farm products conform to the principle of cost of production in the tendency of prices, there will be a corresponding tendency to shift the tax upon the final consumer. ”

“ This would mean that when the owner of deforested land chiefly valuable to the community for forest production agrees to make it produce, he shall be taxed not on his effort but upon the results of his effort, and then exactly as other producers are taxed upon their results. He may pay tax upon his land, as other land owners do, upon its actual value, but without this value being enhanced for taxation purposes by reason of any crop thereon. ”

“ "That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no tax be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given personally or by their representatives." ”