![]() In the United States, for example, not far from half of the government’s total revenue is obtained by disguising taxes in the prices of merchandise, either duty-paid imports, or liquors and tobacco freighted with the weight of the internal revenue. ![]() Seriously considered, the justification offered for indirect taxes is a most curious commentary upon our system of selfgovernment. Instead of allowing the sovereign to blackmail the subject, we graciously permit the owner of personal property to determine the amount of his contribution to the public treasury, much as he might fix upon the gratuity to his waiter in a restaurant. Nor may we longer account as taxation the archaic methods in vogue in the land of the Grand Llama, where the tax-collector, happening upon the wayfarer, accosts him with complaints of the cruel rigor of the winter, and, after a minatory flourish of his matchlock, remarks, “Thy cloak, venerable brother.” Process like this is rendered unnecessary in civilized lands by the proper extension of indirect taxes. ![]() For, despite its historical identity with early taxation, we may no longer designate as taxation the habit of the Orient, where taxes are indistinguishable from blackmail, and where the rich disguise themselves in rags to escape the exaction of the publican. THE remark that Goldsmith in one of his essays lets drop apropos of the history of a tavern is essentially true of the history of taxation, - it “ is a true picture of human infirmity,” in which “ we see every age equally absurd and equally vicious.” If this seem too disparaging to the present age, consider for a moment the most obtrusive features of taxation in the world of to-day, or, rather, the most obtrusive features of the tax systems of the most progressive nations.
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