Report Outline
Comparative Increases in Taxation
Increase in Public Indebtedness
The tax revenues of the federal government during the fiscal year 1926 were $2,567,392,196 below the total of collections in 1920 when federal taxes were at their peak. The reduction in federal taxes during the last six years has approximated 48 per cent.1
Throughout this period of reduction in the burden of federal taxation, the taxes imposed by state and local governments have steadily increased. Figures for 1926 will not be available until after the close of the present calendar year, but from 1919 to 1925, while a net reduction of 39 per cent was being effected in federal taxes, state taxes increased nearly 110 per cent and local taxes, in cities containing one third of the national population, about doubled.
Notwithstanding the rapid post-war increases in taxation, the revenues of the state and local governments have failed to keep pace with their expenditures, and as a consequence there has been a steady increase in the outstanding indebtedness of these civil divisions. |
|
