By what is called the land-tax in England, it was intended that stock should be taxed in the same proportion as land.When the tax upon land was at four shillings in the pound, or at one-fifth of the supposed rent, it was intended that stock should be taxed at one-fifth of the supposed interest.When the present annual land-tax was first imposed, the legal rate of interest was six per cent.Every hundred pounds stock, accordingly, was supposed to be taxed at twenty-four shillings, the fifth part of six pounds.Since the legal rate of interest has been reduced to five per cent every hundred pounds stock is supposed to be taxed at twenty shillings only.The sum to be raised by what is called the land-tax was divided between the country and the principal towns.The greater part of it was laid upon the country; and of what was laid upon the towns, the greater part was assessed upon the houses.What remained to be assessed upon the stock or trade of the towns (for the stock upon the land was not meant to be taxed) was very much below the real value of that stock or trade.
Whatever inequalities, therefore, there might be in the original assessment gave little disturbance.Every parish and district still continues to be rated for its land, its houses, and its stock, according to the original assessment; and the almost universal prosperity of the country, which in most places has raised very much the value of all these, has rendered those inequalities of still less importance now.The rate, too, upon each district continuing always the same, the uncertainty of this tax so far as it might be assessed upon the stock of any individual, has been very much diminished, as well as rendered of much less consequence.If the greater part of the lands of England are not rated to the land-tax at half their actual value, the greater part of the stock of England is, perhaps, scarce rated at the fiftieth part of its actual value.In some towns the whole land-tax is assessed upon houses, as in Westminster, where stock and trade are free.It is otherwise in London.
In all countries a severe inquisition into the circumstances of private persons has been carefully avoided.
At Hamburg every inhabitant is obliged to pay to the state one-fourth per cent of all that he possesses; and as the wealth of the people of Hamburg consists principally in stock, this tax may be considered as a tax upon stock.Every man assesses himself, and, in the presence of the magistrate, puts annually into the public coffer a certain sum of money which he declares upon oath to be one-fourth per cent of all that he possesses, but without declaring what it amounts to, or being liable to any examination upon that subject.This tax is generally supposed to be paid with great fidelity.In a small republic, where the people have entire confidence in their magistrates, are convinced of the necessity of the tax for the support of the state, and believe that it will be faithfully applied to that purpose, such conscientious and voluntary payment may sometimes be expected.It is not peculiar to the people of Hamburg.
The canton of Unterwald in Switzerland is frequently ravaged by storms and inundations, and is thereby exposed to extraordinary expenses.Upon such occasions the people assemble, and every one is said to declare with the greatest frankness what he is worth in order to be taxed accordingly.At Zurich the law orders that, in cases of necessity, every one should be taxed in proportion to his revenue- the amount of which he is obliged to declare upon oath.They have no suspicion, it is said, that any of their fellow-citizens will deceive them.At Basel the principal revenue of the state arises from a small custom upon goods exported.All the citizens make oath that they will pay every three months all the taxes imposed by the law.All merchants and even all innkeepers are trusted with keeping themselves the account of the goods which they sell either within or without the territory.At the end of every three months they send this account to the treasurer with the amount of the tax computed at the bottom of it.It is not suspected that the revenue suffers by this confidence.
To oblige every citizen to declare publicly upon oath the amount of his fortune must not, it seems, in those Swiss cantons be reckoned a hardship.At Hamburg it would be reckoned the greatest.Merchants engaged in the hazardous protects of trade all tremble at the thoughts of being obliged at all to expose the real state of their circumstances.The ruin of their credit and the miscarriage of their projects, they foresee, would too often be the consequence.A sober and parsimonious people, who are strangers to all such projects, do not feel that they have occasion for any such concealment.