| Crop liens | 33⅓% | |
| Hoarded money | 1% | |
| Jewellery, plate, furniture | ½% | |
| Goods sold at auction | 10% | |
| Imports | 2% | |
| Insurance premiums (companies not chartered by state) | 2% | |
| Playing cards, per pack | $1.00 | |
| Gold watches, each | 1.00 | |
| Gold chains, silver watches, clocks | 0.50 | |
| Articles raffled off | 10% | |
| Legacies, profits and sales, incomes | 5% | |
| Profits of Confederate contractors | 10% | |
| Wages of Confederate officials | 10% | |
| Race tracks | 10% | |
| Billiard tables, each | $150.00 | |
| Bagatelle | 20.00 | |
| Tenpin alleys, each | 40.00 | |
| Readings and lectures, each | 4.00 | |
| Pedler | 100.00 | |
| Spirit rapper, per day | 500.00 | |
| Saloon-keeper | $40.00 to 150.00 | |
| Daguerreotypist | 10.00 to 100.00 | |
| Slave trader, for each slave offered for sale | 20.00 |
In 1863 a tax of 37½ per cent was laid on Confederate and state bonds not in the hands of the original purchaser;[430] 7½ per cent was levied on profits of banking, railroad companies, and on evidence of debt; 5 per cent on other profits not included in the act of the year before. The tax on gold and silver was to be paid in gold and silver; on bank-notes, in notes; on bonds, in coupons.[431] In December, 1864, the taxes levied by the laws of 1862 and 1863 were increased by 33⅓ per cent. Taxes on gold and silver were to be paid in kind or in currency at its market value.[432] This was the last tax levied by the state under Confederate rule. From these taxes the state government was largely supplied.
A number of special laws were passed to enable the county authorities to levy taxes-in-kind or to levy a certain amount in addition to the state tax, for the use of the county. The taxes levied by the state did not bear heavily upon the majority of the people, as nearly all, except the well-to-do and especially the slave owners, were exempt. The constant depreciation of the currency acted, of course, as a tax on the wage-earners and salaried classes and on those whose income was derived from government securities.
While the state taxes were felt chiefly by the wealthier agricultural classes and the slave owners, this was not the case with the Confederate taxes. The loans and gifts from the state, the war tax of August 19, 1861, the $15,000,000 loan, the Produce Loan, and the proceeds of sequestration—all had not availed to secure sufficient supplies. The Produce Loan of 1862 was subscribed to largely in Alabama, the Secretary of the Treasury issuing stocks and bonds in return for supplies,[433] and $1,500,000 of the $15,000,000 loan was raised in the state. Still the Confederate government was in desperate need. The farmers would not willingly sell their produce for currency which was constantly decreasing in value, and, when selling at all, they were forced to charge exorbitant prices because of the high prices charged them for everything by the speculators.[434] The speculator also ran up the prices of supplies beyond the reach of the government purchasing agents who had to buy according to the list of prices issued by impressment commissioners. So in the spring of 1863 all other expedients were cast aside and the Confederate government levied a genuine “Morton’s Fork” tax. No more loans of paper money from the state, no more assumption of war taxes by the state governments because the people were opposed to any form of direct taxation, no more holding back of supplies by producers and speculators who refused to sell to the Confederate government except for coin; the new law stopped all that.[435]
First there was a tax of 8 per cent on all agricultural products in hand on July 1, 1863, on salt, wine, and liquors, and 1 per cent on all moneys and credits. Second, an occupation tax ranging from $50 to $200 and from 2½ per cent to 20 per cent of their gross sales was levied on bankers, auctioneers, brokers, druggists, butchers, fakirs, liquor dealers, merchants, pawnbrokers, lawyers, physicians, photographers, brewers, and distillers; hotels paid from $30 to $500, and theatres, $500. Third, there was an income tax of 1 per cent on salaries from $1000 to $1500 and 2 per cent on all over $1500. Fourth, 10 per cent on all trade in flour, bacon, corn, oats, and dry goods during 1863. Fifth, a tax-in-kind, by which each farmer, after reserving 50 bushels of sweet and 50 bushels of Irish potatoes, 20 bushels of peas or beans, 100 bushels of corn or 50 bushels of wheat out of his crop of 1863, had to deliver (at a depot within 8 miles) out of the remainder of his produce for that year, 10 per cent of all wheat, corn, oats, rye, buckwheat, rice, sweet and Irish potatoes, hay, fodder, sugar, molasses, cotton, wool, tobacco, peas, beans, and peanuts; 10 per cent of all meat killed between April 24, 1863, and March 1, 1863.[436]
By this act $9,500,000 in currency was raised in Alabama. Alabama, with Georgia and North Carolina, furnished two-thirds of the tax-in-kind. Though at first there was some objection to the tax-in-kind because it bore entirely on the agricultural classes, yet it was a just tax so far as the large planters were concerned, since the depreciated money had acted as a tax on the wage-earners and salaried classes, who had also some state tax to pay. The tax-in-kind fell heavily upon the families of small farmers in the white counties, who had no negro labor and who produced no more than the barest necessaries of life. To collect the tax-in-kind required an army of tithe gatherers and afforded fine opportunities of escape from military service. The state was divided into districts for the collection of all Confederate taxes, with a state collector at the head. The collection districts were usually counties, following the state division into taxing districts. In 1864 the tobacco tithe was collected by treasury agents and not by the quartermaster’s department, which had formerly collected it.[437] The tax of April 24, 1863, was renewed on February 17, 1864, and some additional taxes laid as follows:—
| Real estate and personal property | 5% | |
| Gold and silver ware, jewellery | 10% | |
| Coin | 5% | |
| Credits | 5% | |
| Profits on liquors, produce, groceries, and dry goods | 10% |
On June 10, 1864, an additional tax of 20 per cent of the tax for 1864 was laid, payable only in Confederate treasury notes of the new issue. Four days later an additional tax[438] was levied as follows:—
| Real estate and personal property and coin | 5% | |
| Gold and silver ware | 10% | |
| Profits on liquors, produce, groceries, and dry goods | 30% | |
| Treasury notes of old issue (after January, 1865) | 100% |
The taxes during the war, state and Confederate, were in all five to ten times those levied before the war. Never were taxes paid more willingly by most of the people,[439] though at first there was opposition to them. It is probable that the authorities did not, in 1861 and 1862, give sufficient consideration to the fact that conditions were much changed, and that in view of the war the people would willingly have paid taxes that they would have rebelled against in times of peace.