Tax Collecting in Germany.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 4292, 23 February 1884, Page 8 (Supplement)

Tax Collecting in Germany.

The ingenuity of the Berlin Tax Commissioners is remarkable. A large firm doing business on 'Change, and having thero a table for the facilitation of their work, have been assessed for said table as a "branch office." Of course they protested, and the hundreds of bovrsiers joined in the protest. The vigour with which taxe3 are collected is also noteworthy, and especially in Saxony. Not only arc the- names of recalcitrant taxpayers publicly announcod in restaurants and drinking shops, and the keepers thereof forbidden to sell liquor to these outlaws on penalty of having their license withdrawn, but members of private societies, coming under the like ban, are equally proceeded against. In the little town of Auerbach. the municipality go so far as to refuse permission to glee clubs and private societies to give balls if any of their members are in arrears with their taxes. The committees of these societies have to produce a list of the members, on which the town tax gatherer marks the sum due by each delinquent, enjoining upon the committee to bring the offending citizen to the scratch. If this prove of no avail, the society have the alternative left them either to exclude such members or to renounce tho contemplated social entertainment. This is paternal government.