land, from the profits of their stock, or from
the wages of their labour.
Capitation Taxes.
Capitation taxes, if it is attempted to proportion
them to the fortune or revenue of
each contributor, become altogether arbitrary.
The state of a man's fortune varies from day
to day; and, without an inquisition, more intolerable
than any tax, and renewed at least
once every year, can only be guessed at. His
assessment, therefore, must, in most cases,
depend upon the good or bad humour of his
assessors, and must, therefore, be altogether
arbitrary and uncertain.
Capitation taxes, if they are proportioned,
not to the supposed fortune, but to the rank
of each contributor, become altogether unequal;
the degrees of fortune being frequently
unequal in the same degree of rank.
Such taxes, therefore, if it is attempted to
render them equal, become altogether arbitrary
and uncertain; and if it is attempted to
render them certain and not arbitrary, become
altogether unequal. Let the tax be
light or heavy, uncertainty is always a great
grievance. In a light tax, a considerable degree
of inequality may be supported; in a
heavy one, it is altogether intolerable.
In the different poll-taxes which took place
in England during the reign of William III.
the contributors were, the greater part of
them, assessed according to the degree of
their rank; as dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts,
barons, esquires, gentlemen, the eldest
and youngest sons of peers, &c. All
shop-keepers and tradesmen worth more than
three hundred pounds, that is, the better sort
of them, were subject to the same assessment,
how great soever might be the difference in
their fortunes. Their rank was more considered
than their fortune. Several of those
who, in the first poll-tax, were rated according
to their supposed fortune, were afterwards
rated according to their rank. Serjeants, attorneys,
and proctors at law, who, in the first
poll-tax, were assessed at three shillings in
the pound of their supposed income, were
afterwards assessed as gentlemen. In the assessment
of a tax which was not very heavy,
a considerable degree of inequality had been
found less insupportable than any degree of
uncertainty.
In the capitation which has been levied in
France, without any interruption, since the
beginning of the present century, the highest
orders of people are rated according to their
rank, by an invariable tariff; the lower orders
of people, according to what is supposed to
be their fortune, by an assessment which varies
from year to year. The officers of the
king's court, the judges, and other officers in
the superior courts of justice, the officers of
the troops, &c. are assessed in the first manner.
The inferior ranks of people in the provinces
are assessed in the second. In France,
the great easily submit to a considerable degree
of inequality in a tax which, so far as it
affects them, is not a very heavy one; but
could not brook the arbitrary assessment of
an intendant.
The inferior ranks of people must, in that
country, suffer patiently the usage which their
superiors think proper to give them.
In England, the different poll-taxes never
produced the sum which had been expected
from them, or which it was supposed they
might have produced, had they been exactly
levied. In France, the capitation always produces
the sum expected from it. The mild
government of England, when it assessed the
different ranks of people to the poll-tax, contented
itself with what that assessment happened
to produce, and required no compensation
for the loss which the state might sustain,
either by those who could not pay, or
by those who would not pay (for there were
many such), and who, by the indulgent execution
of the law, were not forced to pay.
The more severe government of France assesses
upon each generality a certain sum,
which the intendant must find as he can. If
any province complains of being assessed too
high, it may, in the assessment of next year,
obtain an abatement proportioned to the overcharge
of the year before; but it must pay in
the mean time. The intendant, in order to
be sure of finding the sum assessed upon his
generality, was empowered to assess it in a
larger sum, that the failure or inability of some
of the contributors might be compensated by
the overcharge of the rest; and till 1765, the
fixation of this surplus assessment was left altogether
to his discretion. In that year, indeed,
the council assumed this power to itself. In
the capitation of the provinces, it is observed
by the perfectly well informed author of the
Memoirs upon the Impositions in France, the
proportion which falls upon the nobility, and
upon those whose privileges exempt them from
the taille, is the least considerable. The largest
falls upon those subject to the taille, who are
assessed to the capitation at so much a-pound
of what they pay to that other tax.
Capitation taxes, so far as they are levied
upon the lower ranks of people, are direct
taxes upon the wages of labour, and are attended
with all the inconveniencies of such
taxes.
Capitation taxes are levied at little expense;
and, where they are rigorously exacted,
afford a very sure revenue to the state. It is
upon this account that, in countries where the
ease, comfort, and security of the inferior
ranks of people are little attended to, capitation
taxes are very common. It is in general,
however, but a small part of the public revenue,