Page Six 



THE I. A. A. RECORD 



January, 1932 



Farm Taxes Rise 166 



Per Cent Since 1914 



Income Taxes Should Raise Half 



Public Revenues, Wisconsin 



Professor Says 



SINCE 1914 taxes on farm property 

 have risen by 166 per cent, while 

 the price of farm produce is now down 

 to 68 per cent of the war level, Dr. 

 B. H. Hibbard of the University of 

 Wisconsin told delegates and visitors at 

 the recent American Farm Bureau Fed- 

 eration convention. 



"While the discrepancy between the 

 prices paid by farmers for goods 

 bought and the prices received by them 

 for produce sold may be the crux of the 

 farmers' troubles," said Mr. Hibbard, 

 "the fact remains that one of the large 

 items of his outgo consists of the taxes 

 he pays. It is demonstrable that these 

 taxes are higher than they should be 

 as compared with the general tax bur- 

 den resting on people in general. It is 

 true that the taxes on real estate are 

 about equally high in city and country, 

 and in state after state. 



Real Estate Pays Taxes 



"Real estate is taxed somewhere from 

 20 to 40 per cent of its annual rental 

 value. In several states it was found 

 that the taxation of both city and coun- 

 try real estate amounted to from one- 

 fourth to one-third of the annual in- 

 come Before the present depression 

 it \i^as estimated that approximately 

 30 per cent, nearly one-third, of the 

 net income on cash-rented farms 

 was absorbed in taxes. No busi- 

 nesses other than those yielding 

 prc^ts can stand taxation as heavy 

 as this. 



"The main hope of real, permanent 

 tax relief for the farmer is in the pros- 

 pect of a change from property to in- 

 come as the main reliance in raising 

 revenue," continued Dr. Hibbard. We 

 have been timid and halting in this re- 

 form, although the need for a change 

 and the justice of the income tax prin- 

 ciples have long been accepted. Income 

 is not based primarily on property. 

 Hence the folly of trying to reach 

 the main sources of ability to pay 

 merely by enumerating and assess- 

 ing property. We should not rest 

 content until half the public reve- 

 nues are raised by income taxes. 

 Not until such a reform is brotight 

 to pass is there hope of a genuine, 

 adequate relief from the overload of 

 taxes no'w resting on the farm. 



Taxes Cause Bankruptcies 



Dr. Hibbard pointed out that the 

 taxes paid by farmers have been a large 

 contributing cause to bankruptcies and 



foreclosures. He said that the tax is 

 often one-third or one-half as great as 

 the interest payment required on mort- 

 gaged land, and it is reasonable to be- 

 lieve that the cause of financial wrecks 

 among farmers has been attributable 

 to taxes as well as to heavy mortgages, 

 and in the proportion that taxes bear 

 to interest charges. With farm income 

 falling and promising to remain low 

 for some time, taxes loom like a spectre 

 over the farmers' horizon, he said. 



Organization in Selling 



And Buying. Farm Need 



An Illinois Editor / 



On the Farm Bureau 



"The history of the Vermilion Coun- 

 ty Farm Bureau illustrates the value of 

 organization and co-operation of farm- 

 ers," declared the Danville Commercial- 

 News in a recent editorial. "The in- 

 dividual farmer stands alone. He ac- 

 cepts what the stock buyer and the 

 grain dealer choose to give him for his 

 surplus stock and grain. He is at their 

 mercy. Likewise he is at the mercy of 

 those from whom he buys his supplies. 

 His trade is not worth dickering over. 



"Acting in a body, the members of 

 the Farm Bureau command the atten- 

 tion of the big dealers, the wholesalers 

 and the heavy buyers, and procure the 

 best terms on the markets. This is true 

 in buying fertilizer, farm machinery, 

 seed grain and other supplies that every 

 progressive farmer must have. Like- 

 wise it is true in selling farm products. 



"And a highly important work of 

 organized agriculture is the influence it 

 may wield in the matter of procuring 

 favorable legislation, both state and na- 

 tional. Members of congress and state 

 legislatures, even the president and his 

 cabinet, listen attentively to the ap- 

 peals of farm organizations and enact 

 legislation designed to meet their de- 

 mands. Organized agriculture is a 

 power to be reckoned with by legisla- 

 tive bodies and administrative officers. " 



Donald Kirkpatrick, legal counsel for 

 the I. A. A., was the principal speaker 

 at the thirteenth annual meeting of the 

 Edwards County Farm Bureau at Al- 

 bion, December 16. Other speakers 

 were F. E. Longmire and Mary Louise 

 Chase, University of Illinois. 



Correction 



The monthly meeting of the board of 

 directors, not the annual meeting of the 

 Chicago Producers Commission Associa- 

 tion will be held at Rockford on Tues- 

 day, January 26, just prior to the an- 

 nual meeting of the I. A. A. 



The annual meeting of the Chicago 

 Producers will be held in March in Chi- 

 cago as in previous years rather than 

 at Rockfoird. 



Farmers Forced to Buy Co-Opera- 



tively to Cut Their Costs of 



Production 



Geo. Ei. MetBcer 



COMMENTING upon recent devel- 

 opments in co-operative purchas- 

 ing of farm supplies before the Ver- 

 milion County Farm Bureau December 

 10, George E. Metzger, secretary of the 

 lUinois Agricultural Association, de- 

 clared that farmers were being forced 

 into business in self defense. 



"No business can succeed by purchas- 

 ing everything at retail and selling ev- 

 erything at whole- 

 sale, which is vir- 

 tually what the 

 American farmer is 

 doing and has been 

 doing for a consid- 

 erable period of 

 years," he said. 



"A careful study 

 of the commercial 

 and semi- commercial 

 projects of the Farm 

 Bureau and the Illi- 

 n o i s Agricultural 

 Association will disclose that they arc 

 being set up on the chain principle. 

 Co-operation in agriculture had its be- 

 ginning with the local co-operatives. 

 They succeeded in cutting assembling 

 expenses, but they cannot reach far 

 enough into the markets to bring to 

 the producer his fair share of the con- 

 sumer's dollar. 



"It takes wider organization than the 

 local co-operative, and the solution is 

 the merging of local co-operatives into 

 state-wide and national sales and pur- 

 chasing organizations. The farmer can- 

 not be blamed for taking this step. He 

 has learned it from business interests. 

 Business has found co-operation and or- 

 ganization to be advantageous and so 

 will the American farmer find it so." 

 Regarding the extent to which the 

 movement might develop, Mr. Metzger 

 said, "The question is often asked, 

 'Where is this movement going to stop?* 

 Our answer is that whenever we find 

 the margin made by distributors so 

 wide as to work a hardship on pro- 

 ducers of farm products you will un- 

 doubtedly find the farmer getting into 

 that line of business." 



The Farmers National Grain Cor- 

 poration is now getting from three- 

 eighths to one-half of all the grain 

 coming to the Peoria market, reports 

 John Benson, manager of the Peoria 

 oifice. There are about twenty firms 

 buying grain on this market. 



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