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33 Pol. Sci. Q. 1 (1918)

handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry33 and id is 1 raw text is: Volume XXXIII ] March, 1918 [.Number i POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY THE WAR REVENUE ACT THE war revenue act of October 3, 1917, possesses the distinction of being the most gigantic fiscal enactment in history. Never before has an endeavor been made to provide in a single measure for so colossal a revenue as is sought to be obtained by this law. In the following pages we shall attempt, after a short historical introduction, to give a summary of its principal features, an estimate of the tax burden involved, a statement of its probable distribution, and an inter- pretation of the novel and significant contributions made by the measure to public finance. I Historical Retrospect The history of our war finance begins with the emergency- revenue law enacted shortly after the outbreak of the conflict and two and one-half years before our entrance into the war. This history, however, can not be understood unless we re- member the change in the theory of federal revenue that had occurred in the preceding five years. From the early seventies of the last century, when the country had settled down after the fiscal upheaval occasioned by the Civil War, the federal income had been derived from customs and internal revenue taxes levied almost exclusively on liquors and tobacco. In 1909 this complete reliance upon indirect taxes was altered by a tax on corporations, called an excise tax in order to bring it safely within the constitutional inhibition. After the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, however, the corporation tax was merged in 1913 into the general income tax, which now marked the I

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