edistributing incomes is in itself (or can
be made) a virtue; and some even see in tax reform the answer to the
largest social questions of our time. We are now to take up a few of
the more important problems of taxation, to see the difficulties, and
to suggest the direction in which their solution is to be sought. The
tariff having been already separately considered, the chief kinds of
taxes we have here to treat are property taxes, general and special,
and inheritance and income taxes.

Sec. 2. #The general property tax; nature and difficulty.# The rates both
of assessment and of levy of the general property tax are uniform and
equal in proportion to the value of all (or nearly all) property in
the taxing district.[1] There are always some exceptions of certain
kinds of property, or of the property of certain persons, or of
property and things put to certain uses--public, educational,
religious, and charitable in their nature.

The federal government levies no general property tax, but the other
branches of government[2] receive about three-fifths of all their
revenues from it.

At first view nothing would seem to be simpler and juster in principle
than such a plan of taxation, but those who have most carefully
studied its practical operation, almost with one accord, pronounce it
to be "a dismal failure." The chief reason assigned for this failure
has been that the assessment of the tax is imperfect and incomplete.
The usual thought is that if all property could be assessed the plan
would be excellent. Undoubtedly the difficulty of just assessment has
its part in the weakness of the tax, but back of, and more important
than this, is an inherent fallacy in the apparently simple principle
of the tax.

Sec. 3. #Ambiguity of the term "property."# Unfortunately, the word
property is applied, even by the most competent courts, both to the
intangible right of ownership (the fundamental meaning) and to
the concrete thing that is owned, the source of the income.[3] But
evidently the value of the right to the income yielded by a house, for
example, is merely the value of the house. The value of the _property
in the one sense_ (the abstract ownership, the intangible right) is
merely a reflection of the value of the _property in the other sense_
(the concrete wealth). There are not here two independent bodies of
economic wealth. Whatever value belongs to the one is subtracted from
the other. Nor is it rational to take the