Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, JULY 10, 1936. FRENCH TAXATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 202, 16 July 1936, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, JULY 10, 1936. FRENCH TAXATION.

The people of France must spend a good deal of time, in paying taxes, and perhaps in endeavouring to avoid the taxgatherer. The latter is übiquitous and persistent, for there is a multitude of taxes. Nothing escapes the sales tax in Trance, liven the cabbages which 'the peasant carts to market are subject to the 2 per cent, turnover levy. First, when the peasant sells them; a second time when the wholesaler passes them to the retailer; and a third time when the ultimate consumer puts (Item in her market basket. Nor can one rise far above cabbages, cups, and wooden shoes without colliding with the 12 per cent, luxury tax. It falls on everyday footwear, on * street clothes, walking sticks, and upholstered perambulators, just as it does on caviar, champagne, and ermine capes. Kailway tickets pay 32 per cent, of their face value, theatre tickets —even the cinemas—2B per cent. One is taxed for paying rent ; if a landlord, for receiving it. On real estate sales there is a heavy tax (25 per cent); which is often evaded by false bills of sale. There is a tax when paying any bill—in restaurant, department store, or office. To vote, and usually to get a job, a Frenchman must have an identity card. That is taxed. When he is born his, birth must be registered, for which there is a fee. When he dies a fee must be paid on a permit for the funeral procession to use the streets, after which his estate is whittled down by sharp death duties.

While he lives, if monsieur has a balcony on his residence, or outside his office window, that is taxed, as are his piano aud radio. If he keeps a dog- for pleasure, it is taxed more than is a hunting dog, and a hunting dog more than a watch dog. On an automobile lie pays not only a heavy sales tax and fees for license plates, and an ownership identification certificate; lie is also assessed each year on the engine’s horse-power and is obliged to obtain a “permit to circulate,’’ while even in some cities he must , have a permit to park. Paris alone collects 50 million francs a year for parking privileges. 'As for income-tax it reaches down to the sl)s per week level. The French tax c; Hector is called “le percepteur”—the perceiver—and he is well named, for he keeps his eyes opened. lie assesses every sign and billboard that he sees. The lowest fee is for a rooming-house sign. Vacancies and unlighted signs that are stationary cost less than unlighted signs that move. Stationary lighted signs cost more still, but the highest assessment applies to signs that, are both lighted and moving. There is one tax on a simple awning which merely, slides up and down like a window-blind; a hisrher one if the awning extends out from a building; a still higher one if it bears an advertisement. Even the Frenchman who has nothing

to advertise but his ancestry is taxed; for descendants of nobles may use their ancestral titles in republican France, but at so much per Count, a little more so per Marquis, still more per Duke. The democrats who run for public office are taxed on their election posters. There are more than 150 such indirect taxes that are new since 1915. Yet France is struggling with a big budget deficit.