The conflicting interests of the classes in each period are to some degree softened by the social conscience, and taxes are adjusted according to a vaguely held ideal of the social welfare. Social expediency, more or less broadly interpreted, determines who shall be taxed and what will give the best social results. The exemptions from taxation in feudal times were great, and viewed from our standpoint were inequitable, for it was the upper classes who escaped while the peasants bore all the burdens. The landlords and nobility who were assumed to be performing important social functions, often had outgrown their usefulness. Exemptions are granted liberally in most states to-day for some purposes and to some classes of citizens; to educational, religious, and charitable institutions; to the homes of priests and ministers; to homesteads purchased with pension money, etc. California alone of all the states in the Union continued until 1903 to tax churches and private schools. The social interest requires that taxes be both elastic and productive, so that the needs of the government shall be amply provided for. The harmonizing of these needs in the laws of taxation requires a high degree of wisdom, of foresight, and of integrity, in the legislator and in the citizen. No hard-and-fast rule for the apportioning of taxes can be laid down. The decision must be made in each generation by social opinion, guided by the social conscience.
Principles of administration
2. The administration of taxation should be economical, certain, and uniform. Whatever taxes are adopted, whether on property or income, whether at a proportional or a progressive rate, their justice and expediency depend largely on their administration. Principle and practice in this as in most affairs may go far apart. Some laws are more easily and economically executed than others. The time of collection should be as convenient as possible for the citizen, and the mode of payment should be the most simple. As to the time, method of payment, and amount, the utmost certainty is desirable. Taxation that is variable, shifting, dependent on personal whim and favoritism, is despotism. Above all, the administration of the law should be uniform and impartial,—yet this is a principle most frequently departed from in practice. The assessment of taxes has to be intrusted to men with fallible judgment, imperfect knowledge, and selfish interests. The assessor is as near a despot as any agent of popular government to-day. Not infrequently it is to men incapable of earning two dollars a day in any private business that the power is given of passing judgment on the value of millions of dollars' worth of property. Under the circumstances, evils are to be expected and they occur. The small property-owner often is crushed under the unequal assessment while the large owner comes lightly off. Political friends are favored, political foes are made to suffer. Woman nearly everywhere pays more than her fair share of taxes, a fact that the advocates of woman suffrage do not fail to urge as an argument for their cause, although women's disadvantage in this matter is little greater than that of any man without special political influence.
Importance of taxation as a public question
3. The relation of taxation to private incomes makes it one of the largest public questions of the day. The discussion of taxation has accompanied the growth of free government in England and America from the time of Magna Charta. The control of the public purse frequently was the occasion of conflict between the monarch and the people. Taxation was a leading issue in the American Revolution. While, therefore, it cannot be said that the subject has been of no great importance in the past, it is true that in our own national history since the adoption of the Constitution, taxation has not been much discussed, except in the one aspect of the tariff. Constitutional and political questions, states rights, and the question of slavery, long absorbed the interest of citizens and legislators. But with the aroused interest of the public in economic problems, taxation is attracting, and is certain to attract in the next few years, increasing attention in local, commonwealth, and national politics.