, How to make taxation productive, is a vast and complicated practical science. Turgot, one of the wisest of financiers, called it the art of plucking the goose without making it cry. The most ingenious devices to this end, however, have often, in prac tice, met with counteracting difficulties. It was supposed that indirect taxation—that is, a duty levied on articles before they reach the consumer, must, in a civilized and orderly country,' be almost inexhaustible. The merit of the system lay in the consideration, that the burden of the tax did not fall on the person who paid it. Income-tax, house-tax, dog-tax, and the like are levied directly on the person ou whom the burden ultimately falls, and if he do not pay, the amount will be taken by force. Tea-duty, sugar-duty, and wine-duty, however, are not levied on the consumer, though he has to pay them; they are levied on the importer, who has no, or a very slight, interest against the tax, since he must charge it on the consumer. But this form of taxation is met by checks. If it is excessive, people will not buy the taxed article; and it has often been found that reducing the duty increases the revenue. An indirect tax on luxuries, and especially on those which may be used to vicious excess,' has strong recommendations. In sonic cases, it is no great calamity should the tax throw the article nearly out of use. But then
comes another check in the smuggler, whose profession may probably do more to cor rupt and disorganize society than the free use of the article in which he deals. A tax on the necessaries of life, on bread or salt, cannot be evaded, as in the case of luxuries, by the abandonment of use, and therefore it is very productive, but it is also very oppressive. The tax on salt in France was one of the chief causes of the French revolution. The happiest condition for the revenues of a country is when luxuries are so abundantly used by all classes that a small addition to their price is a slight burden, yet yields a large revenue. In this country, the revenue thus derived from tea, sugar, and stimu lants may be set down in round numbers at 30 millions. The chief taxes which now form the revenue of Britain are-1. Those by old custom called " assessed," and levied upon certain items in the possessions and enjoyments of the citizen, as his house-domes tics, horses, dogs, and armorial bearings. 2. The property and income tax, which, after long disuse, was renewed in 1842, and is raised from time to time according to the exigencies of the government. 3. The customs. 4. The excise. 5 The stamps and post-office; and 6. The land-tax. See CUSTOMS-DUTIES, EXCISE, POST-OFFICE, STAMPS, LAND-TAX, FINANCE.
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