[Footnote 1:  Meaning here not a certain political party, but a principle of social action.]

[Footnote 2:  The total debts of the national governments of the world just before the outbreak of the great war in 1914 were estimated at about $44,000,000,000. (These figures include the debts of the separate states in the federal unions of Australia and the German Empire, and the separate debts of European colonial governments, but not those of the states of the United States, and in no case including the debts of minor divisions, the total figures for which are not to be had.) The new debts created by the war give already more than double the foregoing total.]

[Footnote 3:  The special assessment is thus in its nature, in part a private investment.  The plan, of special assessments could easily be applied in many more cases than is done at present.]

[Footnote 4:  There are border-line cases where it is difficult to decide whether a particular payment to the government in the form of a fee, price for service (as water rates, etc.), and special assessment (as for street paving) is in the legal sense a tax or not.  Some courts have, for example, decided that for certain purposes a special assessment is to be called a tax, and in certain other cases it is not to be if this would defeat the evident and just intention of the legislature.]

[Footnote 5:  The figures do not include returns from incorporated places having a population of less than 2500 where the poll taxes may be a considerable sum.]

[Footnote 6:  Particularly the difficulties noted in the next chapter, sees. 2-5.]

[Footnote 7:  See Vol.  I, p. 374.]

CHAPTER 17

PROPERTY AND CORPORATION TAXES

Sec. 1.  Importance of taxation as a public question.  Sec. 2.  The general property tax; nature and difficulty.  Sec. 3.  Ambiguity of the term “property.”  Sec. 4.  Various temporizing policies.  Sec. 5.  A consistent policy of wealth-taxation.  Sec. 6.  Needed reform of assessment.  Sec. 7.  Separation of state and local taxation.  Sec. 8.  Federal taxation of merchandise in commerce.  Sec. 9.  The proposal of the single tax on land values.  Sec. 10.  Various reforms in land taxation.  Sec. 11.  Difficulties in taxing corporations.  Sec. 12.  Special taxes on banks.  Sec. 13.  Special taxes on insurance.  Sec. 14.  Special taxes on transportation.  Sec. 15.  Alternative policies of corporate taxation.  Sec. 16.  General plan for corporate taxation.

Sec. 1. #Importance of taxation as a public question.# The discussion of taxation has accompanied the growth of free government in England and America from the time of Magna Charta.  The control of the public purse has been found to give the key to political power, and therefore it has frequently become the occasion of conflict between the monarch and the people.  But in our own national history since the adoption of the Constitution, taxation has not had a leading place in politics except in the one aspect of the tariff.  The constitutional question of states’ rights long absorbed most of the interest of citizens and of legislators.  But with the quickened attention of the public to economic questions, the problem of taxation became of increasing importance.