Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/83

Rh first class, the tax in force in 1887 was from eight and a half per cent to ten per cent of net income." Under this class the following income was taxed: income derived from all those trades and occupations which are subject to a license tax; the income of mining and smelting establishments, and the profit made by the tenants of agricultural lands. In the second class, which includes income from services rendered or labor performed in occupations not subject to a license tax, the rate reported is exceptionally high. Under the third class, which embraces interests from loans, from invested capital, savings banks, and life-insurance companies, the rate is reported to be ten per cent. The exemptions under this latter head are very extensive, and include the pay of officers and soldiers in active service, interest on deposits in savings banks, and a great number of public securities—as five per cent Austrian stocks and bonds, certain bonds of the Tyrol bonds of all railroads subject to taxation, lottery loans of 1859 and 1860, and a large number of other corporation securities.

Servants are only taxed under the second class and in case their total income exceeds six hundred and thirty florins ($226.16).

In case a party subjected to an income tax makes either a false return or neglects to make any, thrice the amount of the tax is imposed, the payment of which, however, includes the tax itself, so that the fine proper is double the amount of the tax.

—The income tax of Denmark was recently fixed at two per cent of the taxpayer's income. The tax is collected by authorized agents, who are obliged to give ample security for the faithful performance of their duties, for which they receive a remuneration of two per cent on the amount collected, together with an allowance for house rent in return for the obligations imposed upon them of having residences and offices in the taxing districts. This income tax does not seem to be objectionable in the sense of undue burdensomeness, the only complaints made being in regard to the publicity of the pecuniary conditions of the individuals taxed.

—A resort to an income tax for the purpose of defraying state expenditures seems to find especial favor in