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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

400 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME including the ¢repercussion” of the tax on the capital-values themselves. The taxes in the table evidently differ somewhat from the taxes given in the text, which do not include the effect of «repercussion.” The present value, therefore, of this tax on the increase of capital should be altered from $714 to $661.81. A similar correction should be made for the case of the spend- thrift. Our main object, however, is not to study the effects of different methods of levying taxes, but merely to show how untenable is the theory which includes savings under income, and excludes that part of true income or services which brings about a depreciation of capital. § 3 (ro Cm. XIV, § 13) Unrestricted Application of a True Income Tax Impracticable Theoretically, an income tax should tax every element of income, large or small, positive or negative. That is, all posi- tive items should have a tax and all negative items a bounty. This system would be ideal in theory but difficult to carry out in practice. No attempt is made in this book to contrive a practical system of taxation which would avoid all the difficulties which have been pointed out as belonging to systems now in use. It is undoubtedly true that it would be impracticable to assess taxes on each article on the basis of the actual items of in- come it yields; for most of such items are simply the positive sides of « interactions” and are offset as outgoes in the accounts of some other article of capital. To carry out such a system in detail would require that we levy taxes on the proceeds of every sale and remit them on every investment. It would be difficult to avoid injustice, evasion, and fraud if the attempt were made to assess taxes on such income and remit, as would be required logically, taxes on the corresponding outgo. The taxpayer would contrive to exaggerate his outgo and understate his income. Consequently, the system is not wholly unjust which ex- empts from taxation that part of income which stands for impairment of capital, and assesses taxes on that part which swells capital, or savings. The system would be

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