Page:Ferdinand Lassalle - The Working Man's Programme - tr. Edward Peters (1884).djvu/43

 from State property which we need not reckon here. There remain, therefore, about 97 millions of revenue from other sources. Of this revenue, according to the budget, about 26 millions were raised by direct taxation. But this is not true, and is only made to appear so because our budget is not constructed on scientific principles, but is only regulated by the manner in which the taxes are apparently collected. Out of these 26 millions, 10 millions of land tax ought to be deducted; for though they are certainly taken directly from the possessor of the land, yet they are again added by him to the price he demands for his corn; they are therefore actually paid by the consumer of the corn, and are really an indirect tax. For the same reason the tax on trades amounting to 2,900,000 thalers must be deducted.

There only remains as revenue really derived from direct taxation—

Thus only 12,800,000 thalers, gentlemen, out of a revenue of 97 millions really proceed from direct taxation. All that is collected beyond this 12,800,000 thalers (for we must not follow the unscientific classification of the budget which does not reckon the proceeds of the salt monopoly, amounting to 8,300,000 thalers, nor 8,849,000 thalers received as a tax on litigation, as