EXCISE. (MI:hitch a•siis, aksys, Ger.
Accise, excise, from OF. aegis, taxes, from assise, session, from asseir, Fr. ass,•oir, to sit, from Lat. assidcre, to sit, from wi Ref/ore, Gk. gpareaL, hezesthai, Skt. sad, to sit ; confused by popular etymology with Lat. excises, p.p. of excidere, to cut off). The name of a tax on commodities. A tax on commodities bought and sold is a very obvious one, but it has generally appeared in the simple shape of a toll on goods brought to mar ket. and the complicated arrangements for offi cially watching the process of a manufacture for the purpose of seeingthat none of the dues of the revenues are evaded is of comparatively modern m.rigin. Though a tax corresponding to the ex cise appears to have been occasionally levied in England in very early times. the name first ap pears in the act of the Long Parliament estab lishing an excise on liquors. in 1643, with the promise of repeal at the end of the war. But when the land tax was removed or greatly and revenue from that. source was no longer sufficient, it was found impossible to dis pense with this new method of supply to the treasury. Though always unpopular. the excise in some form or other has ever continued to be a material element in the taxation of Great Britain.
In the United States the term excise is com paratively unfamiliar. The taxation which cor responds to the English excise is here known as internal revenue taxation. See INTERNAL REVE NUE SYSTEM.
An excise, when compared with other taxes, has its good and its bad features; it is a method of extracting money for national purposes as expenditures on luxuries, and is especially ser viceable when fed from those luxuries the use of which in excess becomes a vice. On the other
hand, it renders necessary a system of inquisi tional inspection, while the manufacturer is at times obliged to employ a more expensive and in convenient process, and to forego the introduction of improvements, in order to conform to govern mental regulations, the cost of such unnecessary labor falling eventually upon the consumer. Moreover. checking the demand by artificially raising the price of a commodity in this way may often retard the growth of a rising industry. Though counteracted in a measure by the bond ing system, the necessity of a larger capital for the manufacture of exeisable articles fosters a sort of monopoly by its tendency to check com petition; and since the manufacturer must realize profits on that part of his capital which is ap plied to the payment of taxes, as well as what is directly employed in the production of the article. the price to the consumer is greatly increased. These objections do not, however, invalidate the advantages of the excise system in this country, where the luxuries, spirits and tobacco, bear the chief burden of the tax; and it is the com mon opinion that a low excise on articles of lux ury is the most productive as well as the least objectionable of taxes. See FINANCE; STAMP ACT; STAMPS; TAX.