Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/397

Rh greatly increases the difficulty of assessing large incomes at their true value.

In support of this view lie submits in general terms the following results of his careful examinations in Prussia, Saxony, and England: In Prussia, where incomes above one hundred dollars were taxed, for the year selected by M. Beaulieu, about one fourth of the people were entirely exempt. Of the rest, thirty-five thirty-sixths paid on incomes of from one hundred dollars to seven hundred and fifty dollars. Only one person out of forty-three had more than seven hundred and fifty dollars income. Only a little over four per cent of the total income of the country belonged to persons having an income of from $4,000 to $20,000, and only 1.7 per cent to those having over $20,000 income.

In Saxony one fifth of the total incomes belonged to persons having less than one hundred and fifteen dollars yearly. The incomes of those having less than four hundred and seventy-five dollars each aggregated about two thirds of the total income. The great incomes, exceeding $25,000 to the person, belonged to seventy-three individuals, and comprised less than one and a half per cent of the total.

In England incomes under one hundred and sixty pounds, or eight hundred dollars, are not taxed. In the year selected by M. Leroy-Beaulieu 381,000 persons paid income taxes of a total of $750,000,000. Of the contributors 342,000, or about nine tenths, paid on incomes of less than $3,000, but it is noticeable that they were taxed on not much more than a third of the total amount. Thus nearly two thirds of the taxable income belonged to 39,000 persons. One fifth of the total incomes assessed belonged to 1,222 persons, with an income of over $50,000 each.

It will be seen that there is a striking difference in the results shown by M. Leroy-Beaulieu's figures in Germany and England. Much of this difference is due to the nature of the laws, by which all small incomes in England are free from taxation, but a part of it is to be attributed to the larger fortunes in England.

—There is no income tax in Italy in the sense in which that term is used in England and the United States, but there is a so-called professional income tax which was by an old law fixed at seventeen per cent on half the estimated income, and which has been somewhat increased by a new law in which there are variations made according to the sources of income. While Italy is, in fact, potentially one of the richest countries in Europe, and in ancient times was so regarded, its name to a certain extent has come to be synonymous with poverty. The explanation of this is that its government is prodigal and dishonest; and in gathering its income the dishonesty of its officials causes its taxation to fall most oppressively on the