MORE FIGURES ON WAR PROFITS
More Figures on War Profits High Levy Should Have Been Made on Profits Distinguished From Peace Profits; Application of 80 Per Cent Tax in England. IX THE FOREGOING TABLE we give a list of forty...
...In view of these facts is It not certain that war profits should be taxed at least 80 per cent, and that the burdens of war should not be shifted from those that profit by war to those who do not profit by war...
...1,344,926 4,915,872 3,568,947 TOTAL 4 Cos...
...4,746,642 $20,100,000 $15,352,368 Morris & Co...
...126,430 $2,524,378 $2,397,948 International Pap Co ____ 1,105,913 4,620,727 3,514,814 TOTAL 2 Cos...
...The bill as finally adopted Ignored the distinction between war profits tax and peace profits tax, and was based on an excess profits tax which treated a company receiving no profits on account of the war, on the same basis as a company that profits by war...
...755,125 $3,165,020 $2,409,895 American Locom Co...
...3,872,807 10,769,429 6,893,622 Bethlehem Steel Corp...
...The progressive Senators voted for an 80 per cent, war profits tax but were defeated...
...It is perfectly obvious that, given liberal exemption of normal or peace profits, a very high rate indeed can be levied on the true excess war profits without hardship and with the utmost justice and propriety...
...1,017,212 16,658,873 15,641,661 Atlas Powder Co...
...It should be remembered that everyone using copper contributed to the war profits...
...If Congress had adopted the war profits tax at 80 per cent, it would have yielded $2,300,000,000 based on 1916 profits and if based on ID 17 profits it would have yielded much more...
...1,634,665 11,716,428 10,082,063 Utah Copper Co...
...3,629,467 13,223,656 9,594,189 Lackawanna Steel Co____ 1,282,500 12,218,234 10,935,734 Republic Iron & St Co...
...For as soon as the principle of segregating the excess profits of war was lost, it became impossible to apply the rates which only these particular excess earnings could bear...
...Let them put the tax burden upon the middleman, let them lay the tax upon the breakfast table, let them tax the necessities of life, let them allow the coal barons to go on getting away with their bold game of highway robbery, let the munition makers be let off easy while the heavy load is laid upon the sugar bowl, and SOMETHING WILL HAPPEN.—The Wisconsin State Journal...
...that everyone that used paper, or rubber, or sugar, or wool, or steel, was taxed for the benefit of war profiteers...
...348,196 $1,268,311 $920,115 Goodrich Rubber Co...
...that everyone that buys a pair of shoes contributed to these war profits...
...and where the rates actually applied hit normal profits they will inevitably produce hardship...
...11,741,185 58,892,980 47,151,795 Butte & Sup Min Co...
...The Senate had at one time in its work on the bill a clean-cut plan for segregating the enormous profits resulting specifically from the episode of war...
...10,050,718 $21,941,818 $11,891,100 STEEL— Allis-Chalmers Co...
...78,466,478 $369,290,799 $290,824,721 SUGAR— American Beet Bug Co...
...7,879,167 20,465,000 12,585,833 Wilson & Co...
...This is the same plan as is adopted in England where war profits are taxed 80 per cent...
...There had come attempts to invade peace profits in the same schedule, and a disposition to be niggardly WAR PROFITS Ave...
...When the recent revenue bill was before Congress a minority report of the finance committee of the Senate presented by Senator La Follette endeavored to secure a system of taxation on war profits as distinguished from peace profits...
...But that is what shows the shallowness of their patriotism when they come straight down to the scratch...
...1,002,458 2,068,598 1,066,140 (N York) .. 16,212,985 36,638,495 20,425,510 Total St Oil (4...
...5,751,688 8,319,882 2,568,194 Cuban-American Sug Co . 409,988 8,235,112 7,825,124 TOTAL 3 Cos...
...that everyone that bought a pound of meat helped to swell the war profits of the meat trust...
...3,040.745 9,447,299 6,406,554 U S Rubber Co...
...15,559,534 $49,113,085 $33,550,562 OIL— Standard Oil (Cal...
...2,265,694 14,789,162 12.523.468 U S Steel Corp...
...I am in favor of a 95 per cent, tax on all war profits," he declared...
...9,877,964 $17,605,304 $7,727,340 (Ind...
...We append hereto a well considered article from the Review of Reviews on this subject...
...6,661,777 11,226,208 4,564,431 TOTAL 3 Cos...
...47,635,772 $200,700,763 $153,055,288 LEATHER— Amer Hide & L Co...
...1,407,902 3,435,879 2,027,977 Miami Copper Co...
...942,988 8,873,446 7,930,458 Cal & Ariz Cop Co...
...45,637,770 $100,254,873 $54,617,103 POWDER— DuPont Powder Co...
...of course the fellows who are making millions off the war orders don't like it...
...9,060,398 $22,152,250 $13,091,854 Anaconda Cop Min Co...
...Let the senate repudiate Senator La Follette's plan for financing the war, or fail to adopt some plan like it, and some of our "patriotic" senators will find that the people at home don't approve an awful lot of their kind of selfish, grasping "patriotism...
...Favors 95 Per Cent Henry Ford advocates the government take 95 per cent of all war profits in a statement from his in Detroit, published by the New York Evening Mail...
...3,473,804 15,489,202 12,016,398 TOTAL 2 Cos...
...Net Income Pre-war period (1911-12-13) War Profits 1916 Net War Profits 1916 COPPER— Amer Smelt & Ref Co...
...6,866,013 $101,706,405 $94,840,342 PAPER— American Writing Paper...
...In the second column we show the profits of the same companies for the war year, 1916, and In the third column we show the net war profits for such companies during the year 1916...
...The business community deserved more statesmanlike treatment...
...1,231,343 $7,145,105 $5,811,762 RUBBER— Ajax Rubber Co...
...3,856,667 13,898,862 10,042,195 TOTAL 5 Cos...
...14,687,696 30,043,614 15,355,918 (Kent...
...3,075,108 43,593,568 40,518,860 Crucible Steel Co...
...If the minority plan had been adopted and a war profits tax had been laid at SO per cent, it would have netted the government on these forty companies alone over $341,000,000...
...7,723,435 39,738,675 32,005,240 TOTAL 10 Cos...
...that everyone who used a gallon of oil helped to pay the $",5,000,000 of war profits of the Rockefeller interests...
...1,588,799 3,632,213 2,043,414 Swift & Co...
...that every farmer that buys dynamite to clear land contributes to the 1,500 per cent, profits of the powder trust...
...Of course the rich don't like it...
...7,442,399 21,974,263 14,531,864 Ray Consol Cop Co...
...The method of segregation proposed was that used by Great Britain, in which the average or normal profits of the pre-war period are, through a liberal formula, entirely exempted, and a very heavy rate applied to any excess over these normal profits earned in the war years...
...1,296,602 7,759,784 6,463,182 Nevada Consol Cop Co____ 3,419,266 15,002,051 11,582,785 Phelps-Dodge Corp...
...1,754,792 $5,863,818 $4,109,026 TOTAL 40 Cos ......$218,418,748 $895,830,819 $677,298,729 with exemptions—both utter mistakes from the standpoint of the Government revenues as well as of the people taxed...
...5,525,964 $82,107,693 $76,581,729 Hercules Powder Co...
...334,198 $1,643,280 $1,309,082 Central Leather Co...
...but when the present revenue law had reached its final form in the Senate, the pulling and hauling of debate had already deprived this most important section of Its true character of a war profits tax...
...2,966,934 11,155,004 8,188,070 Greene Can Cop Co...
...63,585,777 271,531,730 207,945,953 TOTAL 7 Cos...
...Patriotic Finance HOWEVER much Senator La Follette may fail to see the right of the battle itself, he is the only member of the United States senate who has come across with a fair and just and therefore patriotic plan for financing this war...
...7,408,326 $22,681,671 $15,273,345 WOOL— American Woolen Co...
...3,808,002 $17,132,482 $13,325,480 MEAT— Armour & Co...
...Then, when the Senate bill was matched in conference with the House bill, which had been built on an entirely different and still less scientific plan, the eutira tremendous and delicate work degenerated into a series of compromises not in the least valuable for the purposes of getting a good tax bill, though necessary to get some kind of a tax bill passed...
...IX THE FOREGOING TABLE we give a list of forty companies showing in the first column the average profits made by these companies during the three years preceding the war, which are denominated "peace profits...
...41,781,103 $86,356,011 $44,574,908 Texas Co (The...
...322,837 2,939,839 2,616,952 TOTAL 3 Cos...
...1,246,650 $6,126,677 $4,880,027 American Sug Ref Co...
...Regarding his own company, he said it was building aeroplane cylinders for the government on a basis of no profit...
Vol. 9 • November 1917 • No. 11
