Subsidy

“ At the present time the term subsidy, in place of designating as formerly a grant obtained by the Government from private interests, has come to mean a grant obtained from the Government, in aid of private enterprises which it is claimed should be encouraged by the state in the interest of the general public, as, for example, the fostering of shipbuilding and ship-using, and the cultivation and manufacture of certain commodities. ”

“ The rate at which every man's estate was assessed to a subsidy was perfectly notorious; and the burden of twelve subsidies to be paid in three years, was more than the charge of ship-money they had been enduring. ”

“ Here in the United States many big businesses are subsidized by the Government in one form or another, at one time or another. There are the railways, the airlines, the shipping companies, the mine subsidies, the oil subsidies—and the something like twenty-seven-and-one-half percent deduction allowed annually on new buildings erected is also a form of subsidy. ”

“ The taxing statutes made elaborate provisions for the assessment and collection of the tax in order to secure a full return. Old habits proved too strong and the subsidy “slipped into the same kind of groove as that of the fifteenth and tenth, and became, in practice, a grant of a sum of money of about the same amount as the yield of the last preceding subsidy” (Dowell) . The consequence was that each subsidy came, in the middle of the 16th century, to be a sum of £100,000, and at its close only £80,000. ”

“ In English history it is the general term for a tax granted to the king by parliament, and so distinguished from those dues, such as the customs dues, which were raised by the royal prerogative; of these subsidies there were many varieties; such was the subsidy in excess of the customs on wool, leather, wine or cloth exported or imported by aliens, later extended to other articles and to native exporters and importers (see Tonnage and Poundage) ; there was also the subsidy which in the 14th century took the place of the old feudal levies. ”

“ SUBSIDY. Synonyms:
A subsidy is pecuniary aid directly granted by government to an individual or commercial enterprise, or money furnished by one nation to another to aid it in carrying on war against a common enemy. A nation grants a subsidy to an ally, pays a tribute to a conqueror. An indemnity is in the nature of things limited and temporary, while a tribute might be exacted indefinitely. A [346] nation may also grant a subsidy to its own citizens as a means of promoting the public welfare; as, a subsidy to a steamship company. ”

“ In the psychology of the American mind the word subsidy is fatal to any measure. After the most careful investigation, while I was in the Senate, I verified this statement, that a mail subsidy of four millions a year would give to the United States a mercantile marine which would open new trade routes for our commerce. ”

“ The King has charged me, Sir, to inform Congress, that he grants them a gratuitous subsidy to enable them to make the greatest efforts in the course of this campaign. This subsidy, amounting to six millions of livres tournois, is to be employed in the purchase of arms, ammunition, and clothing, and it is the intention of the King, that the surplus shall be at the disposal of Congress. ”

“ Table Talk, which he had collected while serving as amanuensis, makes Selden say, "A subsidy was counted the fifth part of a man's estate; and so fifty subsidies is five and forty times more than a man is worth." ”

“ The subsidy to unemployed provided in Section 1 of the present rules shall be equal to the remuneration fixed by the tariff for the group and category on which the wage earner was assigned by the valuation commission (Section 61.)
Note. In exceptional cases the People’s Commissariat of Labor may reduce the unemployed subsidy to the minimum of living expenses as determined for the district in question. ”

“ Note that, in a reduced form, subsidies turn up as ‘system-wide exemption’. A subsidy is no ‘real’ subsidy if it compensates for wrong taxes.
Measures to block crowding out boil down to giving the low productivity group some guarantee for work at decent income. Such guarantees can be collective/semi-private arrangements of the Swedish/Japanese type. For the more common mixed economies, the guarantee is market-conforming, and notably consists of tax exemption. ”

“ That is to say, the ‘contributions’ of employers and employed are to be raised, and an Imperial subsidy, of fixed amount, without regard to the annual revenue from Customs, is to be added to the contributions. "It is at present proposed that the weekly 'contributions' to invalidity and old-age insurance shall, in order to provide funds for widows and orphans’ pensions, be increased—upon the mean average of the contributions of the five classes of wage-earners—by one-fourth, and that the Empire shall add a subsidy of £2 10s. ”

“ Revenue.—Under provisions of the Financial Relations Acts of 1913 and 1917 the Union Government pays to the provinces an annual subsidy amounting to one-half of the estimated normal provincial expenditure for the year. ”

“ The contract of the company in respect to the subsidy bonds is to pay both principal and interest when the principal matures, unless the debt is sooner discharged by the application of one-half the compensation for transportation and other services rendered for the government, and the five per cent of net earnings as specified in the charter. ”

“ He proposed that, in order to receive an annuity in later years, any person, male or female, rich or poor, should be allowed to deposit with the Government any sum, paid in instalments, if desired, and the sum should be increased by the Government’s subsidy. ”

“ After all, the Post Office Department overhead, an item perhaps more political than economic in character, was not subject to airline control and was therefore the responsibility of the department. A subsidy is a public grant or subvention to aid an enterprise for the public convenience and not the deficit of a government department. ”

“ It is better for the ultimate security of the government in reference to the payment of its loan, as well as for the service which it may require in the transportation of its property and mails, that a hundred dollars should be spent in improving the works, than that it should receive five dollars towards the payment of its subsidy. ”

“ A scheme may make provision—
(a) for defining or limiting the works in respect of which payments may be made under the scheme; (b) for different rates of subsidy, or different methods of calculating rates of subsidy, according to the nature of the works; (c) for prohibiting or restricting the making of payments under the scheme in cases in which payments out of moneys provided by Parliament under any other Act, or out of moneys provided by the Parliament of Northern Ireland under any Act of that Parliament, are available in respect of the same works ”

“ Each Party shall take into account the interests of the other Parties in the use of any export subsidy on an agricultural good exported to a Party or non-Party, recognizing that such subsidies may have prejudicial effects on the interests of the other Parties.
6. The Parties shall establish a Working Group on Agricultural Subsidies which shall meet at least semi-annually, or at such other times as the Parties may agree, to work toward elimination of all export subsidies in connection with trade in agricultural goods between the Parties. ”

“ Tax exemptions and general subsidies, however, are qualitatively different. Though both provide economic assistance, they do so in fundamentally different ways. A subsidy involves the direct transfer of public monies to the subsidized enterprise, and uses resources exacted from taxpayers as a whole. An exemption, on the other hand, involves no such [p653] transfer. It assists the exempted enterprise only passively, by relieving a privately funded venture of the burden of paying taxes. ”

“ In the Committee of Ways and Means, it was determined that a great part of the charge of the year should be defrayed by means of an impost, which, though old in substance, was new in form. From a very early period to the middle of the seventeenth century, our Parliaments had provided for the extraordinary necessities of the government chiefly by granting subsidies. A subsidy was raised by an impost on the people of the realm in respect of their reputed estates. Landed property was the chief subject of taxation, and was assessed nominally at four shillings in the pound. ”

“ But here again the king and his advocates had boasted so much of his being above the law, and of his power to quash, of his own will, any statute to which he had consented, that the commons were cautious in their proceedings, and they had, moreover, to determine out of what funds this revenue should be raised. These discussions had now driven on the session to the middle of July, and it was agreed that they should vote one subsidy, and one tenth and fifteenth for the present session, and defer the final settlement of the other grant till the next. ”

“ The manner of payment of the subsidy is fixed by rules appended hereto.
79. Unemployed shall receive a subsidy out of the fund for unemployed.
Note. Rules concerning unemployed and the payment of subsidies to them are appended hereto. ”

“ Some of the administrative departments have in fact already adopted such a policy. Thus in the department of indirect taxes, every employé whose salary is less than $440 a year and who has three or more children under eighteen years of age receives a subsidy of $12 a year. ”

“ The somewhat rare term subvention is especially applied to a grant of governmental aid to a literary or artistic enterprise. Governmental aid to a commercial or industrial enterprise other than a transportation company is more frequently called a bounty than a subsidy ”

“ And being Strangers and not under our Obedience until they have paid (over and above such Subsidy and Custom, as the said Treasurer and Company, or their Successors, is, or hereafter shall be to pay) ten Pounds per Cent. upon all such Goods likewise carried in and out, any Thing in the said former Letters-patents to the contrary notwithstanding;. And the same SUMS of MONEY and Benefit, aforesaid, for and during the space of one and twenty Years, shall be wholly employed to the Benefit, Use, and Behoof of the said Colony and Plantation ”

“ To which demand and question the lords replied severally, that considering the necessity of the King on the one part, and the poverty of his people on the other part, a less aid could not suffice than to have a tenth and a half from the cities and boroughs, and a fifteenth and a half from other laymen. Further, to grant an extension of the subsidy on wool, leather and woolfels, and three shillings on the ton, and twelve pence in the pound, from Michaelmas next until Michaelmas in two years next ensuing. ”

“ As expenses for collection, 5 per cent. on the total amount belonging to the Treasury is charged.
“Here is the rule followed to impose taxes for real-estate, city, and real-estate, country:
“On city estate, 25 per cent. on the amount of the rent which the proprietor declares to perceive is discounted, and over the remaining 75, 12 per cent. is imposed.
“On country estates, 2 per cent, is charged on the rent which the proprietor declares to perceive, without any previous discount.
“The Industrial Subsidy affects every citizen who should exercise any industry, profession, trade, art, or employ. ”

“ The Court there said that: 'If anybody could be 'subject to' a provision of the subsidy regulation, complainant certainly would meet this requirement, since it claims to be excluded from the subsidy by a discriminatory and unlawful condition inserted in the subsidy regulation by Amendment No. ”

“ In the mode of levying subsidies a remarkable improvement took place early in the reign of Edward III. Originally two chief taxors were appointed by the king for each county, who named twelve persons in every hundred to assess the moveable estate of all inhabitants according to its real value. But in 8 E. III., on complaint of parliament that these taxors were partial, commissioners were sent round to compound with every town and parish for a gross sum, which was from thenceforth the fixed quota of subsidy, and raised by the inhabitants themselves. Brady on Boroughs, p. ”

“ The question concerning the granting of subsidies is principally a past issue. A century ago many new enterprises in all lines of industry looked to the government for aid. In those days, when capital was scarce and when investors hesitated at risk, it was perhaps wise to grant the help of the public treasury to aid the establishment of young industries; but nowadays, when millions of capital are ready to seize every opportunity for profitable investment, it is recognized that subsidies by the general government are no longer needed. ”

“ Many people have argued for many years in favor of subsidies, which have been suggested to successive Congresses in many forms, sometimes undiguised, and sometimes disguised as payments for carrying the mails, or as a guarantee of the bonds of private corporations, or as a government loan to a private corporation. ”

“ On the contrary, when I shall come to propose a loan, there is not a man of you to whom I shall not hold out at least a job in every part of the subscription, and an usurious profit upon every pound you devote to the necessities of your country. Do I demand of you, my fellow-placemen and brother-pensioners, that you should sacrifice any part of your stipends to the public exigency? On the contrary; am I not daily increasing your emoluments and your numbers in proportion as the country becomes unable to provide for you? ”

“ I grant, then, that the remission of the assessed taxes might be productive of great individual benefit; I allow that it would be beneficial to individuals, that they should have so much more income at their own free disposal; and I am ready further to allow, that the expenditure of this income would, in particular instances, create a great extra demand for labour and commodities. But this is not the whole question.—Would the demand for commodities and labour, looking to the community at large, be increased? ”