But this disproportion will seem still more shocking when it is remembered that the calculation which we have just made concerning the electoral class is altogether wrong, altogether in favor of the voters.
In fact, the only taxes which are levied for the enjoyment of the right of suffrage are: (1) the land tax; (2) the tax on polls and personal property;
(3) the tax on doors and windows; (4) license-fees.Now, with the exception of the tax on polls and personal property, which varies little, the three other taxes are thrown back on the consumers; and it is the same with all the indirect taxes, for which the holders of capital are reimbursed by the consumers, with the exception, however, of the taxes on property transfers, which fall directly on the proprietor and amount in all to 150,000,000.
Now, if we estimate that in this last amount the property of voters figures as one-sixth, which is placing it high, the portion of direct taxes (409,000,000)
being 12 francs for each person, and that of indirect taxes (547,000,000)
16 francs, the average tax paid by each voter having a household of five will reach a total of 265 francs, while that paid by the laborer, who has only his arms to support himself, his wife, and two children, will be 112
francs.In more general terms, the average tax upon each person belonging to the upper classes will be 53 francs; upon each belonging to the lower, 28.Whereupon I renew my question: Is the welfare of those below the voting standard half as great as that of those above it?
It is with the tax as with periodical publications, which really cost more the less frequently they appear.A daily journal costs forty francs, a weekly ten francs, a monthly four.Supposing other things to be equal, the subscription prices of these journals are to each other as the numbers forty, seventy, and one hundred and twenty, the price rising with the infrequency of publication.Now, this exactly represents the increase of the tax: it is a subscription paid by each citizen in exchange for the right to labor and to live.He who uses this right in the smallest proportion pays much;
he who uses it a little more pays less; he who uses it a great deal pays little.
The economists are generally in agreement about all this.They have attacked the proportional tax, not only in its principle, but in its application;
they have pointed out its anomalies, almost all of which arise from the fact that the relation of capital to income, or of cultivated surface to rent, is never fixed.
Given a levy of one-tenth on the income from lands, and lands of different qualities producing, the first eight francs' worth of grain, the second six francs' worth, the third five francs' worth, the tax will call for one-eighth of the income from the most fertile land, one-sixth from that a little less fertile, and, finally, one-fifth from that less fertile still.(4*)
Will not the tax thus established be just the reverse of what it should be? Instead of land, we may suppose other instruments of production, and compare capitals of the same value, or amounts of labor of the same order, applied to branches of industry differing in productivity: the conclusion will be the same.There is injustice in requiring the same poll- tax of ten francs from the laborer who earns one thousand francs and from the artist or physician who has an income of sixty thousand.-- J.Garnier:
Principles of Political Economy.
These reflections are very sound, although they apply only to collection or assessment, and do not touch the principle of the tax itself.For, in supposing the assessment to be made upon income instead of upon capital, the fact always remains that the tax, which should be proportional to fortunes, is borne by the consumer.
The economists have taken a resolve; they have squarely recognized the iniquity of the proportional tax.
"The tax," says Say, "can never be levied upon the necessary." This author, it is true, does not tell us what we are to understand by the necessary, but we can supply the omission.The necessary is what each individual gets out of the total product of the country, after deducting what must be taken for taxes.Thus, making the estimate in round numbers, the production of France being eight thousand millions and the tax one thousand millions, the necessary in the case of each individual amounts to fifty-six and a half centimes a day.Whatever is in excess of this income is alone susceptible of being taxed, according to J.B.Say; whatever falls short of it must be regarded by the treasury as inviolable.
The same author expresses this idea in other words when he says: "The proportional tax is not equitable." Adam Smith had already said before him: "It is not unreasonable that the rich man should contribute to the public expenses, not only in proportion to his income, but something more."
"I will go further," adds Say; "I will not fear to say that the progressive tax is the only equitable tax." And M.J.Garnier, the latest abridger of the economists, says: "Reforms should tend to establish a progressional equality, if I may use the phrase, much more just, much more equitable, than the pretended equality of taxation, which is only a monstrous inequality."
So, according to general opinion and the testimony of the economists, two things are acknowledged: one, that in its principle the tax is a reaction against monopoly and directed against the rich; the other, that in practice this same tax is false to its object; that, in striking the poor by preference, it commits an injustice; and that the constant effort of the legislator must be to distribute its burden in a more equitable fashion.
I needed to establish this double fact solidly before passing to other considerations: now commences my criticism.
