Chapter IV

The tax recently enacted by Congress imposing a burden of 8 per cent. on business profits over and above 8 per cent. on the capital employed, regardless of whether such profits have any relation to war conditions or not, is unscientific and unsound.

(Incidentally, it is a strange provision of that law that it applies only to co-partnerships and corporations, whilst an individual engaged in business, however profitable, is not taxed.)

It is unquestionably right and in accordance with both good morals and good economics, to prevent, as far as possible, the enrichment of business and business men through the calamity of war.

But the recently enacted so-called excess profit tax which it is now proposed to augment largely does not accomplish that. It taxes not merely the exceptional profit, _i.e._, the war profit. It lays a burden not on business due to war, but on all business.

It does this at a time when it is more than ever necessary that energy, enterprise, efficiency, the commercial and financial brain and work-power of the nation, be stimulated to their utmost in order to make good, as far as possible, the waste and destruction which go with war.

Any scheme of taxation which imposes an unnecessary burden upon commercial enterprise and thereby handicaps the nation in its business activities--especially in world competition with other nations--is unsound and bound to be gravely detrimental, both to the business men and still more to the wage-worker; in fact, to every element of the population.

It is worth noting that England, the conduct of whose finances, based upon the experience of many generations as the leading financial power, has always been a model for other nations to follow, has imposed an excess profit tax on business during the war _merely_ to the extent that such profits are attributable to the war, _i.e._, to the extent that they exceed the profits of normal years.

In principle, direct taxation of business activities should be avoided as much as possible, apart from a _war profit excess_ tax.

Care should be taken lest the wealthy man least entitled to preferential consideration, _i.e._, he who neither works nor takes business risks or business responsibilities, be favored as against the man who puts his brains, his capacities and his money to constructive use in active business.

The idle man possessing capital, much or little, if he is so constituted that his conscience permits him to evade his share of monetary sacrifice, can put his money into tax-exempt securities. The man of means who toils in business or a profession must pay a heavy income tax, an excess profit tax, etc. To an extent this undesirable differentiation is probably unavoidable, but it is neither fair nor in the interest of the community that it be accentuated.