When the inhabitants of a state are all free subjects, and each man enjoys
his property with as much right as the prince his sovereignty, taxes may
then be laid either on persons, on lands, on merchandise, on two of
these, or on all three together.
In the taxing of persons, it would be an unjust proportion to
conform exactly to that of property. At Athens the people were divided
into four classes.
[4]
Those who drew five hundred measures of liquid or
dried fruit from their estates paid a talent
[5]
to the public; those who
drew three hundred measures paid half a talent; those who had two
hundred measures paid ten min; those of the fourth class paid nothing at
all. The tax was fair, though it was not proportionable: if it did not
follow the measure of people's property, it followed that of their
wants. It was judged that every man had an equal share of what was
necessary for nature, that whatsoever was necessary for nature ought not
to be taxed; that to this succeeded the useful, which ought to be taxed,
but less than the superfluous; and that the largeness of the taxes on
what was superfluous prevented superfluity.
In the taxing of lands it is customary to make lists or registers,
in which the different classes of estates are ranged. But it is very
difficult to know these differences, and still more so to find people
that are not interested in mistaking them. Here, therefore, are two
sorts of injustice, that of the man and that of the thing. But if in
general the tax be not exorbitant, and the people continue to have
plenty of necessaries, these particular acts of injustice will do no
harm. On the contrary, if the people are permitted to enjoy only just
what is necessary for subsistence, the least disproportion will be of
the greatest consequence.
If some subjects do not pay enough, the mischief is not so great;
their convenience and ease turn always to the public advantage; if some
private people pay too much, their ruin redounds to the public
detriment. If the government proportions its fortune to that of
individuals, the ease and convenience of the latter will soon make its
fortune rise. The whole depends upon a critical moment: shall the state
begin with impoverishing the subjects to enrich itself? Or had it better
wait to be enriched by its subjects? Is it more advisable for it to have
the former or the latter advantage? Which shall it choose — to begin or
to end with opulence?
The duties felt least by the people are those on merchandise,
because they are not demanded of them in form. They may be so prudently
managed that the people themselves shall hardly know they pay them. For
this purpose it is of the utmost consequence that the person who sells
the merchandise should pay the duty. He is very sensible that he does
not pay it for himself; and the consumer, who pays it in the main,
confounds it with the price. Some authors have observed that Nero had
abolished the duty of the five-and-twentieth part arising from the sale
of slaves;
[6]
and yet he had only ordained that it should be paid by the
seller instead of the purchaser; this regulation, which left the impost
entire, seemed nevertheless to suppress it.
There are two states in Europe where the imposts are very heavy upon
liquors: in one the brewer alone pays the duty, in the other it is
levied indiscriminately upon all the consumers; in the first nobody
feels the rigour of the impost, in the second it is looked upon as a
grievance; in the former the subject is sensible only of the liberty he
has of not paying, in the latter he feels only the necessity that
compels him to pay.
Further, the obliging the consumers to pay requires a perpetual
rummaging and searching into their houses. Now nothing is more contrary
than this to liberty; and those who establish these sorts of duties have
not surely been so happy as to hit upon the best method of collecting
the revenue.
