The Revenue Article Amendment to the State Constitution is the only change in the state's fundamental law to be voted on by the people this November. That select status plus the fact that its terms met with the approval of over 80 per cent of all the Senators and Representatives elected to the last General Assembly is ample testimony to the amendment's importance and soundness. It would bs most unfortunate for the people of the state if misunderstandings and distortions prevented ratification this fall, since the revision is already two decades overdue.

The amendment itself raises and lowers no taxes. It does propose that future General Assemblies, subject to the many restrictions it contains as to permissible legislation, need not adhere with undue rigidity to the theory that even all taxes on property be uniform. I call that a theory because absolute uniformity is impossible and the main effect of the present requirement is to force local assessors to make classifications of property for tax purposes that would be unconstitutional if incorporated in legislative acts. You and I should have no hesitation in concluding that the framers of this amendment are correct in saying that our elected legislators, chosen to make public policy, are the ones that should properly decide how the necessary burdens of taxation are to be equitably shared.

Failure to marshal the necessary majority in favor of this amendment will mean that we are saying the General Assembly cannot even consider the question of whether food sales should be exempted from the Retailers Occupational Tax; that it cannot even consider the possible desirability of minimized avoidance of property taxes on motor vehicles by collecting their equivalent at the same time as license plates are issued for the vehicles; that it cannot even consider encouraging reforestation of land by a modest tax concession; that it cannot even distinguish between ordinary household goods and personalty that earns a considerable cash return.

The amendment, as already indicated, has ample safeguards against arbitrary action, and these apply to miscellaneous tax as well as to property taxes. Some will be able to dream up some horrendous type of tax burden and argue that the amendment will allow passage of such a tax, and will even ignore the fact that the pending amendment specifically bans a graduated income tax when the present Revenue Article has merely been interpreted as doing so. To them you have an obvious answer: extreme measures are possible under the Constitution as it now stands, but the good judgment of the legislature has never let them become realities and will not in the future. What the Revenue Article as it now stands does block, and what the revision will allow, are tax law changes that equalize the burdens, reduce possibilities for tax evasion, and simplify the whole process of tax administration.

The Revenue Article is one amendment to our Constitution that is long over-due.

William G. Stratton
Governor of the State of Illinois