In these, alienation is not necessary at the time they are paid; from which it follows, that, in many cases, they cannot be drawn back. When a man pays his land-tax out of his rent, what remains to him will not buy more of any thing than if he had paid nothing. Nay, were the state to indulge him and take his tax in corn, the corn which remains to him would not bear an advanced price, unless the state should export the quantity he had given; and then indeed, by diminishing the supply, it might raise the price of grain in general; but every one having grain to sell would profit of the rise upon the price, as well as the landlord, whose share does not commonly amount to one third of the crop.
But were a tax laid on in so regular a proportion to the value of any property, as to prevent the proprietor from making use of that part which the public intends to take from him, those who pay cumulative taxes would thereby acquire one very great alleviation of their burden.
I have said that when a brewer pays the excise, the tax, as to him, is of the cumulative nature. It is so in a certain degree, no doubt, as may be seen without farther explanation; but it still so far retains its own nature as to be easily drawn back from the consumer. But how can a soldier draw back the tax he pays to Chelsea?
From this material distinction between the two impositions, I conclude, that no objection can lie against proportional taxes, so far as they affect the industrious; because they draw them compleatly back: and that great objections lie against cumulative taxes, when they affect the industrious, because they cannot draw them back; and consequently, they may affect the physical-necessary of the contributor, in case no profit should remain to him upon his labour. On the other hand, I think little objection can be made to cumulative taxes, when they are imposed upon possessions, which produce a visible annual revenue, clear to the proprietor. This is the nature of the dixiemes and vingtiemes in France; where the whole amount of the person’s income is taken upon proper proof, and taxed in proportion to it, without any subsidiary or second levy’s taking place, to make up a determinate sum.
Cumulative taxes would also be far less burdensome to the lower class, could they be levied, so as, first, to preserve the proportion of them to the actual profits on industry: secondly, to make that proportion sensible to the people: and in the last place, to retain the tax, instead of allowing them first to receive it, and afterwards obliging them to refund it.
In proportion as these three requisites do not take place, such taxes become grievous to all who have no fixed income.
To put a tax upon a man’s dwelling house, in proportion to its windows, or hearths, when the house produces no fixed income to him, and when he has none independent of it, may take away a part of his physical-necessary. To put a tax upon him because he has a head, is more grievous than to put a tax upon his hands, in proportion to what they daily gain.
If cumulative and proportional taxes be compared, with respect to the different effects they are found to have upon our opinions as to taxes in general, we find that both of them deceive the contributors, but in different ways.
In the cumulative taxes, the person who pays does not always perceive the reason of his paying. He imagines that he is taxed only because it is known that he is able to pay a certain sum.
In the proportional, the deceit is of another nature. When a person buys a consumable commodity, which has paid an excise, he does not perceive that the price he pays for it comprehends a tax upon his past gains, in favour of the public; but he concludes the whole to be necessary, in order to procure what he has an inclination to consume. An example will make this plain.