The nature of capital and income

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 102659555X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-82920

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Fisher, Irving http://d-nb.info/gnd/118533541

Title:: The nature of capital and income

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: The Macmillan Company

Year of publication:: 1923

Scope:: XXI, 427 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2019

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part III. Capital and income

Collection:: Economics Books

254 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Crar. XIV disturb them greatly. The effect of such a tax as was illustrated in the example of the three brothers would be to discourage the uses of capital which involve waiting. In fact, this discouraging effect is well recognized and ap- plauded by the single-tax advocates, although they over- look the inequities involved. According to them, it is right to discourage waiting, and no speculation in real estate such as was described in a previous chapter should be per- mitted. They would tax all increase of value of land in the manner just described. Perhaps the most harmful case of such a system of taxation is that of forest land. Forestry advocates have long been aware of the baleful effect of the taxation of growing forests, producing, as it does, wasteful and premature cutting, and have attempted to secure a reduction or remission of such taxes. But the persistent belief that the annual increment of value of such forests is income and should be taxed has hitherto prevailed in America, with the natural consequence that the owners of these forests have cut them when they should have allowed them to grow. In Europe, a longer experience in forestry has led, in some cases, to a more rational system. Baden exempts newly established forests from tax for twenty years (law of 1886). In Austria they are exempt for twenty-five years (law of 1869). In France three-fourths of the land tax is remitted for thirty years.”' Even a small tax, when laid on forest land which will yield no timber for fifty years, becomes a very serious drain in the long run.’ § 14 The fallacy which has been exposed is not only a con- fusion between realized and earned income; it is also a confusion between income and capital. To regard “sav- 14 How shall Forests be Taxed?” by Alfred Gaskill, Forestry and Irrigation, April, 1906, p. 173. 2 Some limitations on the applications of a theoretically correct in- come tax are mentioned in the Appendix to Chap. XIV, § 3.

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