Formerly the "octroi"—local customs duty on articles of con sumption—was one of the main sources of revenue to the munici palities on the Continent, but it has now been abolished in the majority of countries and is of importance only in Italy and France. In the latter country, an act of 1897 encouraged the communes to suppress their octrois by opening out to them other methods of local taxation, and later acts have pursued the same policy. As a consequence many French towns have abolished the octroi altogether, while others have contented themselves with reducing the rate of duty or the number of articles subject to it. The total number of octrois in France, which was 1,552 in 1913, was reduced to 'Jo() by Jan. 1926, and continues to diminish. Apart from the addition of centimes to national taxes and the direct imposition of local taxes, such charges as those on frontagers for street cleaning or on occupiers of houses for the removal of refuse are of ten found reckoned as items of local taxation.
In many countries the system of assigned revenues, in conjunc tion with that of local taxation, is in force and in Germany in particular, since the war, this system has been largely extended. Government grants, also, are frequently given for specific pur poses. It may further be mentioned that local taxation is, on the Continent much more than in England, relieved by the income arising from municipal landed property, especially forests, and that in some countries the profits from the municipal supply of gas or electricity and from other municipal undertakings, such as tramways, slaughter-houses, markets, funerals or quarries, add substantially to the local revenue. The larger (county or pro vincial) authorities, as a rule, obtain their funds by percentage additions to certain specified national taxes and by the method of assigned revenues. They may also, sometimes, levy taxes them selves, but in this they are never given the same scope as the communes. Thus, in Belgium, taxes on dogs and bicycles are levied by almost all the provinces, and on motor-cars and persons employed in industries by several. In Spain is to be found the exceptional system of the provinces making additions, for their own purposes, to municipal taxes. In some countries the method of obtaining provincial revenue is by precepts on the communes.
Whereas the local authorities in continental countries possess a greater variety of sources of revenue than in England, they are, generally speaking, much more restricted as to the amount of revenue which they may raise by taxation and that not only by definite statutory provisions as to the number of centimes which may be added or the subjects of local taxation. In many con tinental countries the annual estimates of every local authority require the approval of a higher authority and, even where this is not the case, the levy of a new tax will almost always require such approval. In Denmark approval is required only when the local
taxation exceeds a certain amount ; in Sweden and in several of the Swiss cantons control of this description is little more than formal, and in Estonia and Finland the local authorities possess almost entire freedom within the limits of the law. On the other hand, both in France and Germany, and in the countries which closely follow either the French or the German model, the higher authori ties in the hierarchy of government exercise a general control over the finances of the lower. This control may not, indeed, be limited to the refusal to sanction taxation proposals of the local authority. The system of inscription d'office, which is recognized in France, Holland, Poland, Hungary and some of the German States, enables the superior authority to insert in the communal budget items for obligatory functions, which may involve additional taxation.
In some countries a department or official of the central Gov ernment exercises this control directly over all local authorities ; in others this applies only to the highest grade of local authority, which may itself control the lower. Thus, in France, the prefect, who is an official of the central Government, controls both the department ( = county) to which he is appointed and every local authority within it. In Holland the annual budget of the communes requires the approval of the provincial executive, from which there is an appeal to the Crown. In Spain there is in each province a body representing the central Government, whose approval is required for the levying of all local taxes. In Czecho slovakia the provincial authority sanctions the levying by the communes of any of the taxes on the recognized list, but the per mission of the Government is required for the levying of any others.
Valuation and assessment for land, buildings or income taxes are usually the concern of the national authorities. Indeed, a French writer (M. Roger Bonnard) postulates it as one of the essential conditions of local impositions that they must be such that their assessment and levy can be carried out by the State services, since the majority of the local authorities are not in a position to exercise these functions. On the other hand, the con trary system is to be found. Thus, in Denmark, an assessment committee is directly elected annually in each commune and in the towns assesses for national as well as local taxes. There is an appeal from this committee to a county liabilities council as regards assessments on real property. Although, as a rule, the final accounts as well as the estimates of each local authority must be submitted to a superior authority, there is nowhere to be found the same systematic Government audit which is carried on in England and Wales under the Ministry of Health.