An income tax for Virginia

Literature on the subject of the income tax has become so vast that to add something worthwhile to it seems almost a hopeless task. Men who have come authorities through years of reading and study in the field on taxation have set forth their views at length; commissions appointed by states and nations have made investigations and reported their findings, both as to the theory of the tax and its application; every fiscal report of the many nations and several states employing this form of levy is, in part, a document dealing with it. Supplementing these sources of materials are summaries of them, to be found in nearly every book of Economics or Public Finance, and partisan arguments for or against the tax are numerous and easy to find. In view of these facts, what, it may be asked, is the excuse for a paper dealing with an income tax for Virginia and the answer is to be found in the above facts, Voters who choose and instruct present day lawmakers are usually busy people who lack time to make studies of each detailed part of the system of laws under which they are governed. The man who pays the taxes is keenly interested in how much he has to pay and what his neighbor pays, as well as in what benefit he receives in return for this payment, but the intricate works of a tax system interest him only in a remote way