§ 1. Inheritance tax laws. § 2. Fiscal importance of inheritance taxes. § 3. Income taxes; general nature. §4. Income taxation by the states. § 5. History of federal income taxation. § 6. Events leading up to the law of 1913. § 7. Main features of the law. § 8. Exemptions and stoppage at source. § 9. The graduation principle. § 10. A system of taxation.
§ 1. #Inheritance tax laws.# There remain to be considered at least two important forms of taxation that are essentially personal in their unit of assessment, in contrast with the foregoing which are (or should be, if consistent) essentially impersonal[1] These are the inheritance and the income taxes.
Until 1916 little use had been made of inheritance taxation for federal purposes. In that year, however. Congress passed a law which was expected to obtain about $20,000,000 a year from inheritances.
Forty-one states in America have inheritance tax laws (in 1915) which apply generally to property passing either by will or under the intestate laws of the state. The tax is for state purposes. These laws differ in many ways, but are nearly all alike in certain respects:
(1) In applying to the separate legacies rather than to the estate as a whole.[2]
(2) In taxing legacies to relatives in the direct line at a lower rate (or even exempting them entirely) than those to collateral relatives.[3]
(3) In exempting legacies below a certain amount.[4]
(4) In having rates progressing with the size of the legacy; (this feature is less general, but is prominent in most of the later laws).
§ 2. #Fiscal importance of inheritance taxes.# The fiscal importance of inheritance taxes has been comparatively not very great (except in New York State), but it has rapidly grown. In 1903 the receipts from this source (in 27 states) were over $7,000,000; in 1913 they were (in 35 states) $26,000,000. The spread of inheritance taxes and the higher and progressive rates applied are an expression in part of the need of additional revenues and in part of the growing popular concern regarding the concentration of wealth. Yet the actual legislation is something of a compromise between fiscal policy (to get revenues) and social policy (to reduce or to distribute the larger fortunes).[5] In New York legacies of over $1,000,000 are now taxable at 4 per cent to relatives in the direct line and to all others at 8 per cent. In Washington the tax to relatives in the direct line is but 1 per cent, but to others it may go as high as 12 per cent on legacies over $100,000. In Wisconsin, somewhat similarly, the tax may rise to 15 per cent on the excess above $500,000.
§ 3. #Income taxes; general nature.# All taxes, whether assessed upon the capital value of goods or not, come out of (reduce) the incomes now or later available for individuals. But there are various ways of attacking incomes, i.e., of apportioning the tax burden. Income taxation is that form in which the basis of the assessment and levy is the income of the taxpayer as it arises (not accumulated wealth, or capital, or business processes, or expenditures). Of the various conceptions of income[6] the one mainly employed in income taxation is monetary income arising in the course of business, supplemented occasionally (but not consistently) by some items of material income that are expected to come to the person. There is not in the long run such a contrast between wealth taxation and income taxation in their ultimate burden and effect as is usually supposed.