Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/259

 PIINCILE$ O$ PiNANtE 247 ' : very the United States, next m England, in Rnssia and China, civilized income are ranch lower and lowest countries in parts ,f and the taxable calmcity probably in nearly the same The different classes of the probably amongst India.. The 'social of these cormtries pxoportion. commnnity each have their own taxable capacity;but they are also to a great extent earning or enjoying incomes of different origin, and their habits, and conseqnently the conmoditics on which the ninimum social expenditnre is spent, ! differ. All this ought to be taken into acconnt in de;rising the tax systen, so as to lay the burden eqnally on all classes by taking the same percentage of the taxxable capacity per capita, when the taxable capacity per capita the In other words based on the per capita is equal. The greater the taxable capacity greater should be the percentage taken. taxation shonld be progq'essive, but snr ns income above the mmmum needed to maintain the conventional standard of life, and not on the whole income. In' India a class of artisan traders whose average income is Rs.l,200 per annum has a much higher taxable capacity than college educated clerks whose average income is the same, because the former can live for Rs. 40 per month, the latter'for not less titan Rs. $0. This is a question which we need not follow fnrther. It has only been introduced to show the extreme difficnlty, not to say impossibility, of devising any system of taxation snch as could absorb the whole taxable capacity of the people. Before this limit was reached for all 'classes, some would inevitably be taxed beyond it. Consequently any system of taxation which endeavored to obtain more than 7,5 or 80 per cent of the theca'etical taxable capacity would be likely to be oppressive. The actual estimation of the taxable capacity of the population inhabiting any territory mnst be mde