1. Show how taxes are related to the cost of living. What forms of taxation are most closely related to it?

2. Can you add any other principles of taxation to those laid down by Adam Smith?

3. Select from the constitution all the provisions which relate to taxation and put them together in this form: “Congress may impose any sort of taxation except that——and that——and that, etc.”

4. What is the incidence of (a) import duties; (b) export duties; (c) a tax on vacant land; (d) a tax on a factory; (e) a normal tax on incomes; (f) a poll tax; (g) a tax on inheritances; (h) a tax on the profits of theatres; (i) a tax on motor trucks?

5. Is it right that income from government bonds should be exempt from taxation?

6. Which of the following taxes is the wage-earner likely to feel the least, and why: tariff duties, a property tax, income taxes, a sales tax, a poll tax?

7. Should different forms of property (land, buildings, household furniture, stocks, bonds, automobiles, etc.) be taxed at different rates? Should factories be taxed at a different rate from homes? If all men are equal in the eyes of the law, why should they be taxed at different rates?

8. It cost only a billion dollars a year to run the government before the war. Interest on the debt now amounts to nearly another billion. But the government is spending about four billions. Why is this? Now that the war is over, why is it not possible (apart from interest on the war debt) to get back to the old scale of expenditures?

9. What are the chief defects in our present system of raising public revenues? What improvements can you suggest? Would you favor a sales tax? Do you believe that Congress was unwise in abolishing the tax on excess profits?

10. Enumerate all the different forms of taxation that any one man may have to pay in the United States at the present day.

11. How is the budget prepared and passed in your state? Compare the relative influence of the governor with that of the legislature in determining what the state government spends.

12. Explain treasury notes; refunding; debt limit; surtaxes; net debt; progressive taxation; sinking fund; serial bonds; special assessments.

13. Two cities of about the same size may have approximately equal amounts of net debt yet one may be in a much better financial position than the other. Account for this.

14. When Chief Justice Marshall said: “The power to tax involves the power to destroy”, what did he mean? Should the power to tax be used to secure a more nearly equal distribution of wealth and net annual incomes among the people?

1. The salaries of government officials should be taxed like the incomes of private individuals.

2. No man’s income should be twice taxed (once by the nation and once by the state).

3. Property should be taxed by a uniform rule and should not be classified for taxation.

4. No debt limits should be fixed for cities by state law, cities being allowed to decide for themselves how much they shall borrow.

5. Assessors should be appointive state officials and should not be elected by the voters of cities, counties, or towns.