The Press. MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1867.

Press, Volume XII, Issue 1588, 9 December 1867, Page 2

The Press. MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1867.

Of all methods of taxations there is uone which, in theory, is better or fairer than an income-tax. That every person in the country is bound to

constitute in proportion to hid means to tbe public burdens and to the cost of carrying on tbe Government, is on the face of it a Belf-evident proposition. But when we come to apply this maxim practically, we are surrounded with an inextricable coil of difficulties. In the first place, what is to be done with respect to different kinds of income ? Ought not a distinction to be observed between those that are certain and those that are precarious, those that are derived from a permanent source and those that depend upon the life of an individual ? Is it right that a fundholder, who, without the slightest industrial effort on his part, draws an income from the lazy security of the three per cents, and will transmit it % unimpaired to his children upon his death should be assessed in the same rate with a professional man, whose income depends upon his daily and nightly toil, will be lessened by any illness or accident that temporarily incapacitates him for work, and will cease altogether at his death ? Or again, should incomes derived from trade, and therefore to some extent contingent and fluctuating, be taxed as heavily as those proceeding from landed estates, which are lasting and reliable ? If we endeavour to surmount this difficulty by classifying incomes and charging the different classes at separate rates, we shall find that there is as wide a variance between tbe individuals of a class as between the classes themselves, and that as t_ucb injustice is done by rating all the members of a class alike as by rating all classes alike. In fact, so impossible is it to adapt the tax to the circumstances of each particular case, and so impossible to take a general average, that however we multiply schedules, or however carefully we arrange the graduated advances of the tax from the lower to the higher incomes, gross inequalities in its operation must necessarily exist. They are its inseparable characteristic.