Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1898 — WHO PAYS THE WAR TAX? [ARTICLE]

WHO PAYS THE WAR TAX?

Kerchants* Association Proposes to Go to Law on tbe Subject. The war tax law in Its entirety ia ia force. The schedules relating to beer and tobacco became operative June 14; the other schedules took effect July 1. There is a great scarcity of stamps. The government, with all its equipment, was able to furnish only a fraction of the supply needed. There was a demand for over 40,000,000 stamps of all classes at the fiev York office at the outset, bat applications were cut all along the line. The banks were most favored, because stamps will, be sold at alt banks, and the public will thus have easier aceess to them.

The telegraph and express companies will mako customers pay the tax of 1 cent each on telegrams and bills of lading by compelling them to buy the stamp and cancel it. The Merchants’ Association has decided to fight the express companies on this issue, and will probably appeal to the courts if common carriers refuse to give a receipt with the stamp tax duly paid when a package is offered for shipment. A committee of the association in each of the large cities visited each express company to announce that merchants would not pay the tax. The express companies replied that they had been advised by counsel that they were not obliged to pay it. The railroad companies have practically agreed to pqsr a part of this impost, and the Merchants’ association proposes to bring the express companies in line. Under their contracts with the railroad companies the express people are obliged to pay a certain percentage varying from 40 to 50 per cent, of their gross receipts as compensation for express facilities upon the various reads. The adoption of the first of these measures would therefore have necessitated an increase in the rates of the express companies to a sum nearly double the amgunt of the tax. It was therefore decTOfci that the most feasible proposition was the adoption of the rule that only the exact amount of the tax shall be collected. The shipper would be required to pay this tax, plus the express companies’ rates.