Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1874 — Report of the Commissioner of Internal Royenue. [ARTICLE]

Report of the Commissioner of Internal Royenue.

Washington, Nov. 19. In his report Commissioner of Internal Revenue Douglass states the receipts for the fiscal year at $102,644,747, or $2,644,747 in excess of the estimate. The es timate of the current fiscal year is $107,000,000. The total drawback on spirits, tobacco, and general merchandise for the past fiscal year was $52,346, and for 1874 $35,495. No spirits were exported for drawback during the last year, and the quantity of tobacco was very slight compared with the amount exported in bond. The amounts refunded for taxes illegally collected were $618,667in 1873 and $239,749 in 1574. The receipts from distilled spirits for the fiscal year of 1874 were $49,444,090, a net decrease of $2,655,280. Tire receipts from special taxes on recti-

tiers and dealers show an increase of $799,413. The production of spirits during the year waS 69,572,062 taxable gallons. Seizures amounted in value to $476,362. Hie amount of distilled spirits remaining in warehouse Sept. 80 for payment of tax was $12,577,096, making a decrease of $3,240,013 from June 30. The amount remaining for export was reduced in same time from 2,145,010 gallons to 1,047,714 gallons. The annual receipts from all sources relating to fermented liquors for the. year were $9,304,679. Receipts from tobacco in all forms, $33,242,875, a decrease of $1,143,427, due to the closing out of bonded warehouses in the early part of the year and the effect of the panic. From November to the present time there has been a steady increase of collections over any previous corresponding period. The largest amount collected in any quarter Iras the first quarter of the present fiscal year—year from this source are expected to aggregate $36,000,000. The production of tobacco for the last fiscal year was 118,548,619 pounds, an increase over the preceding year of 2,107,684 pounds. The number of cigars, cheroots, etc., on which taxes was collected was 1,886,697,498, or 75,662,852 in excess of the previous year. The quantity of tobacco removed without paymefit of tax for exportation for the fiscal year was 10,800,927 pounds, an excess of nearly three-quarters of a million pounds over the preceding year. The Commissioner considers it indispensably necessary to control the movement of raw or leaf tobacco by the continuance of the leaf clauses of the act of June 6,1872.

The receipts from other sources were: Bank deposits, savings banks, capital and bank circulation, $3,387,000; adhesive stamps, $6,136,844; penalties, $364,216; articles and occupations formerly taxed, but now exempt, $764,880. The Commissioner extols the working of the system abolishing Assessorships and leavina the whole matter with the Collectors as securing more prompt payment and a larger amount of tax. The tax against banks and bankers realized $3,000,734, an increase of $403,013 over the previous year, notwithstanding the financial disasters of the fall of 1873, and is^largely due to the new systeritof assessments, the results of which are still more apparent in the rise from collections from special taxes the last quarter of the fiscal year 1872, when they amounted to $3,303,539, against $5,855,581 in the last quarter of the fiscal year 1874. The Commissioner suggests that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, hereafter, upon his requisition, furnish all the stamps necessary under the law, except proprietary and documentary;"and asks a positive provision from Congress upon the subject.

Should Congress wish to abolish stamps on bank checks, etc., perfumery, cosmetics, patent medicines, matches, etc., which yielded last year $6,136,844 (but he is still of opinion that the revenue cannot be reduced with safety), the Commissioner says an equivalent codld be had by increasing the tax on spirits ten cents per gallon, which would yield $6,957,000, of four cents a pound on tobacco would yield $4,012,000.