Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/79

Rh by departments, industrial establishments, independent of the stamp or transfer tax, but not affecting the bonds of the state (or rentes), nor associations of partnerships in a collective name, nor private obligations, mortgages, and the like." "Religious societies are taxed five per cent on the income of their capital" In 1886 the revenue derived from the above taxes was returned at 47,200,000 francs ($9,400,000), representing in 1886 a capital of 1,500,000,000 francs, of which 131,000,000 francs represented properties situated in France.

Again, it is not generally known that Alexander Hamilton, as a member of the conventions which framed the Constitution of the United States and the first Constitution of New York, gave all his influence in favor of the restriction of all internal or local taxation to visible, tangible objects, and to the assessment of these specifically, and by some uniform and simple rule. The language used by him in one of his papers (The Constitutionalist) on this subject is as follows: ''The genius of liberty reprobates everything arbitrary or discretionary in taxation. It exacts that every man, by a definite and general rule, should know what proportion of his property the State demands. Whatever liberty we may boast in theory, it can not exist in fact while (arbitrary) assessments continue.''

The following sentiment or legal principle, laid down by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Boyd vs. United States (116 United States Reports, 631, 632), though often apparently little regarded by the legal profession, would, however, seem in itself to constitute a complete and insuperable barrier against any resort in the United States to the prosecution of arbitrary or inquisitorial inquiries, which must of necessity be instituted and prosecuted by tax officials for the obtaining of any personal and warrantable data for the correct assessment of an income tax, the language of the court being as follows:

"Any compulsory discovery, by extorting the party's oath or compelling the production of his private books and papers to convict him of a crime or to forfeit his property, is contrary to the principles of a free government. It is abhorrent to the instincts of an Englishman. It is abhorrent to the instincts of an American. It may suit the purposes of despotic power, but it can not abide the pure atmosphere of political liberty and personal freedom."

So much, then, for what may be termed the philosophy of an income tax. Consideration of some of its most instructive experiences is next in order.

The old Romans, who never gave much place to sentiment in their laws or policy, had an income tax in the days of the empire, and they overcame all difficulties connected with its administration in the