Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
REMFW
fffljSIC TIRADE
VOL.
LXXII. No. 1
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
Jan. 1, 1921
Single Copies 10 Cento
$2.00 Per Year
Should Be Opposed
NE of the important subjects before the music industry just now is the matter of devising ways and
means for organized and effective opposition to the various proposals in connection with the revision
of the War Revenue Act that are calculated to place increased and discriminatory burdens on the
industry. A number of such proposals have already been made by Government officials, official and
semi-official committees and others, all of them tending to increase excise taxes upon musical instruments and
other articles for the purpose of lightening the tax burden in other quarters.
According to the report recently made by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue for the year ending
June 30, 1920, the last official figures obtainable, there were paid on pianos, player-pianos, talking machines,
music rolls, records, etc., taxes totaling $13,624,121, on a volume of business amounting to $272,482,929 for the
year. When it is realized that excise taxes are confined to the music trade and a few other industries, and that
they are levied in addition to the excess profit taxes and several other assessments which all citizens and business
men must meet, even the Government officials should admit that the music interests have done their full share,
and more than their full share, in meeting their financial obligations to the Government during and particularly
since the war.
The Secretary of the Treasury advocates doubling the excise tax on musical instruments on the theory
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that by that means the income from the industry will be doubled—in other words, that it will contribute
$13,000,000 more to the Government's treasury. It is a question of grave doubt whether the doubling of the
excise tax would bring in even a fifty per cent increase in income, because of the fact that under present condi-
tions the public would more than likely be inclined to hesitate about paying the additional tax added to the price
of instruments, and the manufacturer cannot, and under the law is not expected to, absorb it.
The music industries have conducted several strenuous campaigns during the past few years in connection
with tax matters, and yet were only able to have the original three per cent tax confined to certain lines of goods
and to keep the later and broader five per cent tax down to that figure instead of having it fixed at ten per cent
as originally planned. Once a tax is established, it seems as though Congress sits up nights devising ways and
means for increasing that tax by degrees, feeling that it is easier to follow up a precedent once established than
it is to place a new tax on a new industry.
Every music dealer in the country, as well as every manufacturer in the country, should study not only
the arguments advanced by the Music Industries Chamber of Commerce, but should gather information and
formulate arguments of his own and see that they are presented forcibly in the proper quarter. For every
individual dealer to protest direct to Washington would simply cause confusion and result perhaps in discrimi-
nation, but there is much work that can be done locally through chambers of commerce, business and political
organizations and through Congressmen in their own home towns that will prove mighty effective in putting the
music industry on record as entitled to consideration in any plan of tax readjustment.
There were those who some time ago were waiting anxiously for the present session of Congress to
convene in order to have all excise taxes on musical instruments revised. That Washington officials now suggest
doubling, the present tax should not in any sense interfere with the campaign to have the discriminatory excise
taxes removed entirely. It is declared in Congress that the main object of the tax revision program is not only
to provide additional revenue, but to distribute the tax burden equitably, and certainly no plan is equitable that
places additional tax burdens on one industry while others go practically scot free.
There is no sense in getting excited over a situation that calls for cool, careful and consistent combative-
hess. The thing to do is to be prepared to support the Chamber of Commerce along the lines suggested and when
suggested. Working to bring about a decisive "no" to the referendum of the United States Chamber of Com-
merce as to whether or not excise taxes should be retained is one of the first steps in rendering this support.
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