Inland Revenue

“ The central government keeps in its own hands certain revenues, such as salt, the post-office, telegraphs, railways, army and Indian Marine, in addition to the districts of Coorg, Ajmere and the North-West Frontier province. The other provinces raise and administer their own revenues, subject to the central control; they are allowed a certain proportion of the revenue to meet their own administrative charges, and so have an interest in economical expenditure. The apportionment of the revenues is settled afresh every five years. ”

“ An Island in the Delaware overflowed at high water has for a given sum, suppose a thousand pounds, been banked in, drained, and made to produce, by the hay sold from it at Philadelphia, a considerable sum annually; for instance, two hundred pounds. If the owner of such an Island had borrowed in Philadelphia the thousand pounds to improve it, and given six per cent interest, he would have gained a net revenue of one hundred and forty pounds. This certainly would not be a balance of trade against his Island, nor the draining it of specie. ”

“ The management of an investment portfolio with income from out-of-state sources is as much a local activity as the manufacture of goods destined for interstate commerce, American Mfg. Co. v. City of St. Louis, supra, the publication of a trade journal with interstate revenues, Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, supra, or the growing of fruit for interstate markets, Gwin, White & Prince Inc. v. Henneford, supra. All such taxes affect in some measure interstate commerce or increase the cost, of doing it. ”

“ It is too familiar for us that at the present day, while the British Government drew freely upon the various resources of India, nearly 40 per cent of the total revenue is derived from the taxes on land. ”

“ As all might be produced in the Colony, these duties, amounting to £69,619 19s. 4d., must be considered as an unnecessary drain on its resources, which may be removed by change of habit in the consumption of colonial produce, and by greater industry in the manufacture of the articles which now produce nearly one-half the Revenue of the Colony.
Western Australia is, however, less taxed in proportion to her population than most other countries. The amount per head being £3 6s. ”

“ If more of the produce of the land and labour of England be employed150 in the purchase of foreign commodities, less can be employed in the purchase of other things, and therefore fewer hats, shoes, &c. will be required. At the same time that capital is liberated from the production of shoes, hats, &c. more must be employed in manufacturing those commodities with which foreign commodities are purchased; and consequently in all cases the demand for foreign and home commodities together, as far as regards value, is limited by the revenue and capital of the country. ”

“ If, for example, the intrastate rates were so far reduced as to leave no net profits, and the only profitable business was the interstate business, it certainly could not be said that the value of the use was measured by the gross revenue.
It is not asserted that the relation of expense to revenue is the same in both businesses; on the contrary, it is insisted that it is widely different. The master found that the revenue per ton-mile in the intrastate business, as compared with the revenue per ton-mile in the interstate business, was as 1.4387 to 1.0000. ”

“ For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue—to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures. ”

“ It is true, our revenue is considerably increased by a duty of twenty-three pounds sterling on every ton of currants, which is one half as much again as the prime cost, the common price at Zante being fifteen guineas. But this tax is railed upon ourselves, and does not check the importation of this foreign commodity, since we consume three-fourths of what the island yields. ”

“ The natives were to be taxed, but, having little of their own to be taxed, and practicing no occupation that could of its own volition become a profitable source of revenue, the state undertook to organize industry, and, by creating an opportunity for employing the labor of the natives, to receive the profits of production for its own uses. ”

“ The wealth of a province or village is measured by the extent and fertility of its land, its facilities for rice irrigation, and the number of its buffaloes.
When government wishes to raise supplies from particular districts, it does not enquire how many rupees or dollars it can yield in taxes, but what contribution of rice or maize it can furnish, and the impost is assessed accordingly: the officer of revenue becomes a surveyor of land or a measurer of produce, and the fruits of the harvest are brought immediately into the ways and means of the treasury. ”

“ The public revenues are derived from customs taxes and charges on imports and exports, transit taxes, cattle taxes, profits on coinage, receipts from state monopolies, receipts from various public services such as the post office, telegraph, Caracas waterworks, &c, and sundry taxes, fines and other sources. From 60 to 70% of the revenue is derived from the custom-house, and the next largest source is the transit tax. ”

“ Before proceeding to take the reader from city to city, and to depict their several peculiarities, a few statistics gathered by the author on the spot will afford as tangible evidence of the growth and present commercial standing of the colonies of Australasia as anything which could be adduced.
The annual revenue raised by these colonies aggregates a larger sum than that realized by Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, and Greece united. Five hundred million dollars are annually paid for imports; and exports to a like amount are sent from the country. ”

“ What are called poll-taxes in the southern provinces of North America, and in the West Indian Islands annual taxes of so much a head upon every negro, are properly taxes upon the profits of a certain species of stock employed in agriculture. As the planters are, the greater part of them, both farmers and landlords, the final payment of the tax falls upon them in their quality of landlords without any retribution. ”

“ The state of the finance was not more consolatory with a debt of £19,137, and an annual charge for interest and ordinary expenses of £2,390, the revenue of £3,000 left only £600 for unforeseen expenses and improvements.
"Thus at the peace, this Island found itself with little or no trade; little or no disposable revenue, no attraction for visitors, no inducement for the affluent to continue their abode, and no prospect of employment for the poor." ”

“ The high prices paid here for land produce, arising from the necessity of drawing a great part of what is consumed from such distant lands, enables the Rājās of these Bundēlkhand states to draw the large revenue they do. These chiefs expend the whole of their revenue in the maintenance of public establishments of one kind or other; and, as the essential articles of subsistence, wheat and gram, &c., which are produced in their own districts, or those immediately around them, are not sufficient for the supply of these establishments, they must draw them from distant territories. ”

“ Taking the most favourable, but extremely improbable supposition, that the importation is not at all checked, nor the home production enlarged, the state gains a revenue of only half a million, while the consumers are taxed ten millions and a half; the ten millions being a contribution to the home growers, who are forced by competition to resign it all to the landlords. The consumer thus pays to the owners of land an additional tax, equal to twenty times that which he pays to the state. Let us now suppose that the tax really checks importation. ”

“ If the same trade had been done, the revenue from customs since 1895, on those articles which have been placed on the free list, would have amounted to more than £500,000, but I do not believe that if those duties had been in force they would have received an additional half-million from customs into the Treasury, I believe the more money people have to spend, the more they enjoy themselves, and the more luxuries they use, and the revenue is stimulated thereby. ”

“ English free-traders accept as an axiom that Customs duties cannot produce increased revenue and at the same time stimulate local manufactures. Nevertheless, under the kind of compromise by which duties of fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five per cent. are levied on so many articles, it does come about that the colonial treasurer gets his revenue while, sheltered by the fiscal hedge, certain colonial manufactures steadily grow up. The factories of the Colony now employ some 40,000 hands, and their annual output is estimated at ten millions sterling. ”

“ The rise was mainly due to increases in land, railway, and customs returns. Customs in 1879, £88,329, and 1888, £159,059; land in 1879, £33,398, and 1888, £81,348; railways in 1882, £12,571, and 1888, £37,302. At the same time, however, the public debt increased from £361,000 in 1879, to £1,275,000 in 1888—in 1887 (vide Budget speech) the banks held securities representing £1,297,000, which made the debt of the colony on public and private accounts to be over £2,500,000, or about £63 10s. per head of population; the revenue per head in 1884 was £8 19s. 8d., and expenditure, £9 0s. ”

“ A land-tax of half as much in the pound as the land-tax is in England, will raise nearly four times as much revenue in France as is raised in England. This is a scale easily understood, by which all the other sections of productive revenue can be measured. ”

“ What with an increased colonial expenditure, export, Imperial expenditure, and revenue from lands, storekeepers, officials, and producers were reaping an encouraging harvest. Storekeepers gained the first share of convict expenditure, and a large amount of the direct export trade—people held that storekeepers got too much. Farmers and gardeners had a better local market for their perishable products, and pastoralists for their stock. ”

“ If the farmer is necessarily compelled to purchase articles for consumption of foreign importation, he will contribute through the merchant to that branch of revenue — the merchant having added the duty to the price of the article sold. The merchant will receive the produce of the farmer in exchange for his goods, whereas, otherwise, the farmer would pay cash into the treasury for his direct taxes, where, of course, nothing could be receivable but money. ”

“ The net profits of the interstate and intrastate business, respectively, passenger and freight, were then found by deducting the apportioned share of expense from the apportioned share of revenue, and the rate per cent. of the net profit upon the rate value assigned to each sort of business was computed. The master concluded that the returns from intrastate transportation were unreasonably low, and hence that the rates in question were confiscatory. ”

“ In China, besides, in Indostan, and in several other governments of Asia, the revenue of the sovereign arises almost altogether from a land tax or land rent, which rises or falls with the rise and fall of the annual produce of the land. The great interest of the sovereign, therefore, his revenue, is in such countries necessarily and immediately connected with the cultivation of the land, with the greatness of its produce, and with the value of its produce. ”

“ Few are discontented with the present rate of taxation, because it is moderate; and, with the exception of that small part of the colonial revenue which arises from duties on articles of export, may be even considered judicious; inasmuch as the great bulk of the duties falls on luxuries which can be dispensed with, without occasioning any material diminution of comfort and enjoyment. ”

“ To him, land is only the instrument which enables him to earn the wages of this labour, and to make the profits of this stock. All taxes, and all the revenue which is founded upon them, all salaries, pensions, and annuities of every kind, are ultimately derived from some one or other of those three original sources of revenue, and are paid either immediately or mediately from the wages of labour, the profits of stock, or the rent of land. ”

“ But, while these industries receive no benefit from the fiscal policy of the Colony, they are heavily taxed in support of the revenue, for not only are all the machinery and materials used in their development subject to more than p. 10625 per cent. import duty, but the cost of labour is greatly enhanced by the high wages, which become necessary when the purchasing power of money is diminished by Protection. Every year witnesses a considerable expansion of the industries in question ”

“ In dealing with unjust discrimination as between persons and localities in relation to interstate commerce, the question is one of the relation of rates to each other. In considering the authority of the Commission to enter the state field and to change a scale of intrastate rates in the interest of the carrier's revenue, the question is that of the relation of rates to income. The raising of rates does not necessarily increase revenue. It may in particular localities reduce revenue instead of increasing it, by discouraging patronage. ”

“ The revenue is derived principally from the land-tax, which is paid partly in kind and partly in money; it is generally a very light impost, amounting not, as some suppose, to one-tenth, but more usually to one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of the produce. There are also taxes on pledged articles, and more particularly a heavy impost on salt; while custom-houses are established on the sea coast, and at the most important passes in hills, and junctions of rivers, so as to secure the mercantile as well as the agricultural population. ”