Cyprus, as I Saw It in 1879

by Sir Samuel White Baker

But the 3 per cent. on professional profits and salaries is arbitrarily fixed for each village, or group of villages, and the Moukhtars levy the personal contributions of each tax-payer as they think fit.

In this process there is considerable oppression of the poorer taxpayers, and also loss of revenue to the State. Both would be obviated, or at all events mitigated, by entrusting the assessment to Government officers, and by a more careful and exact registration of property, and of profits from trades and professions. The revenue from the licence tax in towns must largely increase in the future.

As a rule, the district officers endeavour to recover the verghis before tax-payers are subjected to the exactions of the tithe-farmers for payment of the dimes and other imposts. In some of the Turkish vilayets, the Government have gone so far as to forbid the local tribunals from condemning the tax-payers to pay the claims of third parties until they have assurance that the verghis have been paid.

The average yield of the verghis tax in the last five years was 3,521,083 piastres, or 30,354 pounds per annum. The account of the last year of the series (1877-78) showed a revenue of 3,193,850 piastres, or 27,535 pounds. The demand for the current year is 3,380,246 piastres, of which only 518,545 piastres have been recovered up to the present time. The slackness of the Turkish revenue officials in collecting this tax is due partly to the change of administration and uncertainty as to future taxation of the island, and partly to the war tax and other burdens imposed upon the people during the past year. The needful measures have now been adopted for effecting recovery, and as the tax affects property and the well-to-do classes, it is hoped that about 2,000,000 piastres will be recovered in the next six months. Adding this sum to the recoveries already effected, the revenue of the entire year is estimated at 2,552,000 piastres, or 22,000 pounds.

Tax on Exemption from Military Service.

This superseded the capitation tax formerly levied upon Christian subjects, and other subjects of the Porte who were not Mohammedans, for exemption from military service. It is a tax of 27 3/4 piastres for each male inhabitant from twenty to forty years of age, but practically it is levied upon males below and above the limits of age. Returns of the numbers coming under this impost are settled between the heads of villages and the Moukhtars. The latter are required to recover the money and pay it in twelve monthly instalments into the chest of the sandjak.

The rate of 27 3/4 piastres is equivalent to 5s. per man per annum. There is no apparent reason why it should not be paid at once and credited in the Government Treasury immediately on payment.

This tax is unpopular and offensive to those whom it affects throughout the Turkish dominions. The Greek, Armenian, Bulgarian subjects of the Porte have protested against it from time to time, but without effect. Were these declared eligible for military service on the same terms as Mohammedan subjects, but with the option of providing substitutes, the impost would be relieved of its invidious character, and perhaps yield a larger revenue to the State than heretofore. This, however, equally with the exoneration tax, would be inappropriate in Cyprus under a British administration, which does not require any considerable proportion of the population for military service. It is matter for consideration, therefore, whether this light tax may be continued in some other form.

The average yield of this tax during the past five years was eqivalent to 12,270 pounds a year. It increased last year, on account of the war, to 15,110 pounds. But in the current year the recoveries have been slack, for the reasons stated above in regard to the verghis, and the estimate is therefore for 1,044,000 piastres, or 9,000 pounds.

Tax on Sheep.