[43]. It must, however, be observed, that the price of beer was not raised, either by the brewers, or by the victuallers, on account of the additional malt-duty, anno 1760.
When the sale of an exciseable commodity is vested in a company who manufacture it, by exclusive privilege, the whole oppression of collection is avoided; because the company itself then pays the duty, and they draw their reimbursement from proportional profits on the sale of the goods.
This is the greatest advantage of the farm above the public management of a tax.
When excises are levied upon those who manufacture the commodity excised, the oppression of the laws falls upon the manufacturers, although they only advance the tax, and draw it back from the consumers upon the sale of the commodity.
It is greatly for the advantage of every consumer in the kingdom, that no fraud in the collections should pass unobserved; because all the profits arising from frauds belong to the manufacturer, who in reality is the tax-gatherer, as much as the farmers in France, when they sell their salt and tobacco. But as the farmers appear in the light of King’s officers, and that the collectors seem to bear hard on those with whom they live, people foolishly imagine, that were brewers, for example, more gently dealt with, beer would come the cheaper to themselves. This is a mere delusion; because no brewer whatever will sell his beer cheaper than either an assize, or the ordinary rate obliges him to do, let his profit, from frauds, be ever so great, and his address in committing them ever so successful; and the less productive the tax turns out to be, the more the other impositions upon the people must be augmented, in order to make up the deficiency.
If we compare therefore the oppression of excise-laws felt by those who only advance these impositions, with the ease which the consumers find who really pay them, we may judge of the advantages which the proportional taxes have over the cumulative.
The excise, as paid by the brewer, is really of the cumulative kind. The exciseman demands money of him, at a time when no alienation takes place, and perhaps when he is not prepared to make the advance for his customers, who must refund it to him with profit: besides the hopes of being able to defraud is disappointed, and it is always disagreeable to be disappointed in what we either wish or hope.
Were all mankind honest, the inconveniences of levying such taxes would be less; but as that is not the case, methods must be fallen upon to disappoint the intention of committing fraud. The only way to accomplish this, is, to render it difficult and dangerous. While every individual has a liberty to manufacture an exciseable commodity in whatever place he thinks fit to enter for that purpose, when every one has a liberty to sell liquors, which, upon retail only, are subjected to excise (as is the case in France) must not collectors be multiplied in proportion to the occupation which such policy implies? And will not these collectors oppose frauds to frauds, in order to profit by them, at the expence of the merchant or manufacturer? This will sow discord and hatred between two classes of the same society, and thereby the state is hurt. All discord hurts a state, as it does a private family.
It is out of my way to lay down plans for preventing such inconveniences. It would require an intimate knowledge of every circumstance relating to the country for which the remedy is intended.
I shall therefore endeavour only to throw out some useful hints, by mentioning the impositions where the inconveniences in levying are the least; and by comparing these with other impositions, where the oppression in levying appears to be greater, the contrast of circumstances will suggest the principles upon which a plan might be formed.