Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: TAXATION OF LIFE INSURANCE IN THE UNITED STATES ROBERT LYNN COX GENERAL COUNSEL AND MANAGER ASSOCIATION OF LIFE INSURANCE PRESIDENTS Reprinted Prom The Addresses And Proceedings Of The International Conference On State And Local Taxation Held At Toronto, Ontario Oct. 6-9, 1908 INTERNATIONAL TAX ASSOCIATION COLUMBUS, OHIO TAXATION OF LIFE INSURANCE IN THE UNITED STATES By Robert Lynn Cox General Counsel and Manager, Association of Life Insurance Presidents, New York, N.Y. Criticism of existing schemes of taxation is a field in which there has never been a failure of crops since the day when Caesar Augustus issued a decree that all the world should be taxed. In becoming a product of this soil of discontent, I feel primarily and mainly a sense of companionship. I have been given to understand that the first essential qualification for membership in this fraternity is a firm conviction that the particular kind of taxation with which you are concerned is a little worse than any other. That each in turn, of those who have been asked to speak, is expected to show that the tax which he is to discuss is more unjust and unjustifiable, more vicious and pernicious, than any other form of taxation. I therefore hie myself to the task with glee over the opportunities and advantages this requirement affords me, but with profound sympathy, nevertheless, for the other speakers who are under the handicap of being expected to show that their subjects are as serious and important as mine. In order to come within the very reasonable time limit imposed by your program committee, I have adopted the method of putting into footnotes accompanying my paper many of the facts and quotations of authorities which, without this limitation, would have been incorporate...