5. Tíund, or tithe, paid to the Crown: these have been discussed in the ecclesiastical section.

The present complicated system will best be explained by a copy of the Thinggjaldskvittunarbók or Receipt Book for the Thinggjald, the general taxes. Each large farmer keeps one, and the forms are printed either at Reykjavik or at Akureyri. The following will be filled up as the specimen of cesses levied upon a large merchant who hires a farm from the Church:

Ár (year)
1868.		 Fólkstala
(number of household),
22.		 Jarðarhundrað
(landed property)
none.		 Lausafjarhundrað
(movable property),
27 hundreds.
Fiskar Rixdollars. Skilling
(fishes). $ (estimated at 96:$1).
Skattur, 40
Gjaftollr, 20
Tíund (royal tithe), 16·2
Til Samans (total), 76·2 9 50½
Lögmannstollr,...... 4½
Thinghústollr,...... 4
Jafnaðarsjóðsgjald,... 2 24
Althingisgjald,... 0 0
Allt gjaldið samlagt (grand total), 11 83

The Skattur forms the chief item of the income of the Sýslumaðr.

The Lögmannstollr is still devoted to paying law taxes.

The Thinghústollr, or charges for provincial assemblies, is always four skillings; the householder where the meetings take place pays the same sum, and receives it back as part of the hire of the room. It directly derives from the old Thingfarar-kaup (fee for travelling to the Parliament, as judges, jurors, witnesses, etc.) levied upon every franklin; and those who did not pay it could neither sit as arbiter nor as “neighbour.” The Thingheyjandi (Thing-performer) received a sum proportioned to the number of days’ journeys he and his retinue had to travel.

The Jafnaðarsjóðsgjald is also called Sakamálatollr, i.e., a repartition fund paid to the Amt or Quarter for public purposes, posts, roads, criminal prosecutions, and other unforeseen expenses. All who have one and a half hundreds in movable property must contribute, and the Amtmenn settle every year the sum required, and the proportion appertaining to individuals.

The merchant contributes no Althing-money, because he is not a landed proprietor. This tax is taken from all landed property in the country, except that belonging to the Crown and the Church; three-fourths are paid upon immovable, and the remaining one-fourth upon all movable possessions. Every year, the Hreppstjórar, aided by two landowners of the parish, estimates how much Landskyld (rent) is paid either by the owner of the farm or by his tenants and sub-tenants. The Stiftamtmaðr (governor) having decided upon the sum required, the amount is duly reparted on landed property.

In addition to these taxes the Iceland farmer pays three other tithes—viz., to the priest, the Church, and the poor (16·2 ells, or $4 each)—besides a ljóstoll or light-tax = 4 lbs. of tallow, to illuminate the church: its equivalent being seventy-two skillings. He feeds one lamb for the priest (lambsfóður, or heytollur—hay-tax), or pays its forage = $1, 48sk. Those who own property, movable or immovable, to the amount of twenty hundreds, must also make offur (offertory) to the priest, amounting to not less than $3. Those who own less property than five hundreds, work one day for the priest during the hay-making season, or pay an equivalent of $1, 4sk. By the law of 12th February 1872 an annual tax is levied on landed property, 1½sk. per hundred. For the money thus raised model farms are to be established and young men taught farming. By far the heaviest item of taxation is, however, the poor-rate (fátækra útsvar), over and above the poor tithes, for it is nowhere less than equal in amount to all the other taxes put together, and in some parishes it is even double the amount of all the other taxes. This tax is levied by the Hreppstjóri at the autumnal parish meeting. The pauperism is an evil fraught with imminent danger to the island, and requires the immediate attention of the legislature. It need hardly be suggested that emigration is the perfect cure for the sturdy vagrants who infest the land, and that free passages to America, or elsewhere, would be well laid out.

The taxes in kind (Wadmal, yarn, woollen stuffs, fish, butter, hay, oil, cattle, sheep, tallow, hides, skins, and all vendibles) are estimated by the Hreppstjóri, who transmits his account to the Sýslumaðr, and the latter checks the report by referring to the mean value of the parish. He then commutes what is paid to him into money, through some trading firm; and, as he is liable to loss by the fluctuations of the market, he is allowed to retain one-third by way of remuneration. A “crack collector,” to use an Anglo-Indian term, may make as much as $3000 per annum—though less than half that sum would probably be a high average.