Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1888 — INTERNAL REVENUE. [ARTICLE]

INTERNAL REVENUE.

annual report of commissioner JOSEPH MILLER. The Quantity of Liquor and Tobacco Consumed During the Past Year—Withdrawals for Actual Use Exceed Those of Last Tear. [Washington special.] Joseph Miller, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, has made a report to the Secretary of the Treasury on the working of that service during the fiscal year ended June 30 last. The report shows that the total receipts for the fiscal year were $424,326,475. an increase of $5,489,174 over the receipts for the previous year. The estimated receipts for the current fiscal year are $125,000,000. provided no changes are made in the existing rates of taxation. The withdrawals for consumption during the year were: Spirits distilled from apples, peaches, and grapes. 886,107 gallons; other spirits, 70.677,379 gallons; fermented liquors, 24,680.219 barrels; cigars, 3,844.726,650; cigarettes. 1,862,726.100; snuff, 7.436.989 pounds; tobacco, chewing and smoking. 201.925.613 pounds; oleomargarine, 32.667.755 pounds. This shows a large increase as compared with the previous year. The cost of collection of internal taxes for the year was $3,978,283. being less than 3.2 per cent, of the amount collected. During the year 881 persons have been arrested for revenue violations; property to the value of $132,744 has been reported for seizure, and $73,619 for assessments for unpaid taxes and penalties, Durln? the year 518 illicit stills w’ere seized, resulting in the death of one officer and the wounding of . another. The number of distilleries registered during the year was 3.994, and the number operated was 3,646. The Commissioner renews his recommendation that authority be given for the distillation of all kinds of fruit under the regulations which govern the production of brandy from apples, peaches, or grapes exclusively. In regard to the proposition to remove the tax from brandy distilled from fruit, he says that it appears to be probable that the relief of this article from taxation would lead to the utilization of a large number of different fruits for the distillation of spirits, and to the production of an additional volume of such spirits, which might reasonably be expected to have an appreciable effect upon the taxpaid grain and molasses spirits with which it would come into competition. The quantity of spirits (70,279.406 gallons) produced and deposited in distillery warehouses during the year is less than the production of 1887 by 7,552,193 gallons. There was an increase amounting to 4,827.669 gallons in the production of alcohol, rum. gin, pure, neutral, cologne spirits and miscellaneous, and a decrease amounting to 12,379,862 gallons in the production of bourbon whisky, rye whisky, and highwines. The quantity of spirits (70,741,811 gallons) withdrawn, tax paid, from distillery warehouses during the year exceeds that of last year by 4,353,508 gallons. The Commissioner says that in response to numerous suggestions by members of Congress and others as to the practicability of withdrawing spirits from distillery warehouses free of tax for use in the mechanical arts, and protecting the revenue against fraud by methylating the spirits in bonded warehouses, established for the purpose, the microscopist of his office was requested to make experiments in the chemical laboratory for the purpose of ascertaining whether such spirits could be demethylated. He has succeeded, by the use of a small still, in separating the methyl or wood alcohol from the ethyl or taxable alcohol, and in deodorizing a portion of ethyl alcohol through the use of bone black and other chemical sut stances. Tho Commissioner says further: “It may bo urged that if the demethylation cannot be accomplishea without the use of a still the operator is readily liable to detection because of the special surveillance required by the inter-nal-revenue laws in the matter of stills and distilling, but I do not take this view of tho case. The internal-revenue laws do not prohibit the use of stills by persons other than the distillers of spirits, and. as a matter of fact, many druggists and others use stills on their premises. The still used in this office was among the smallest of the stills which druggists and others, not distillers, are permitted to use, and its use would be hard to detect." The quantity of spirits remaining in distillery warehouses at the close of the year is given at 61,833,018 gallons, being 4,112,251 gallons more than at the close of the previous year. The quantity so remaining Oct. 1 last is given at 52,554t625 gallons. Of the 864.704 gallons grade brandy .of bonded during the year 535,583 were produced in the First district of California, 10,089 gallons in the Tenth district of Ohio, and 416 gallons in the Fifth district of New Jersey. The quantity of distilled spirits in the United States, except what was in customs bonded warehouses, on Oct. 1,1888, was 93,712,919 gallons. The aggregate amount of taxes collected from tobacco during the year was $30,662,431. The export account shows a decrease in manufactured tobacco of 224.700 pounds; a decrease in the number of cigars exported of 462,425, and an increase in the number of cigarettes exported of 40,834,500. The number of cigars imported during the fiscal year ended June 30.1888, was 84,203,780. The value of the manufactured tobacco imported was $88,457. The retail liqudr licenses in Illinois number 11.271, a decrease of 364 for the year, and the retail beer licenses are 634, an increase of 40 for the year. In Indiana tho retail liquor licenses are 5.567, a decrease of 57 for the year, and the retail beer licenses are 182. an increase of 12. In Michigan the retail liquor licenses are 215, an increase of 9. In Wisconsin the retail liquor licenses are 5.466, a decrease of 842. and the retail beer licenses are 345, an increase of 154. In the prohibitory State of lowa the retail liquor licenses have been reduced from 3.584 to 2,928, and the retail beer licenses have decreased from 283 to 249. In the prohibitory State of Kansas the retail liquor licenses have decreased from 2,098 to 1,277. but the retail beer licenses have increased from 84 to 119. In the three States of Maine. New Hampshire, and Vermont the retail liquor licenses have decreased from 2,570 to 2,214, and the retail beer licenses have decreased from 318 to 213. For the entire country the retail liquor Mccnses number 168.687, a decrease for the year of 19,520. The retail beer licenses are 8,161, a decrease for the year of 524. There was an increased production of 1,500.000 barrels of beer, and a decreased production of 7,500,000 gallons of spirits. In Illinois the total collections of 1888 largely exceeded those of 1887. In the First District the collections were $9,463,818, or $241,450 more than the aggregate of the First and Second Districts the previous year. In the Fifth the collections were an increase of $4,372,021 over the collections the year before in the Fourth and Fifth Districts together. In the Eighth District the collections were $1,693,203, an increase of 556,297, and in the Thirteenth District they were $585,632, an increase of $5,937.