736 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE BEST METHODS OE TAXATION. 



By the Late Hon. DAVID A. WELLS. 

 PART I. 



THIS historical survey of tax experience among peoples widely dif- 

 fering in their economic condition and social relations, and this 

 examination of the scope and practice of taxation, with especial refer- 

 ence to the tax systems of the United States as defined and inter- 

 preted by judicial authority, prepare the way for a discussion of the 

 best methods of taxation for a country situated as is the United States. 

 General as are the theoretical principles underlying taxation, the ap- 

 plication of these principles to existing conditions must be modified 

 to meet the long usage and inherited prejudice of the people, and 

 the form of production or manner of distributing wealth. This holds 

 true in the face of appearances so opposed to it as to defy definition 

 and acceptance. No less .promising field for an income tax can be 

 pictured than British India, and few more promising fields than 

 France. Yet India has borne such a tax for years, while Erance will 

 not permit a true tax on income to be adopted as a part of its revenue 

 system. In the latter country the plea is made that the upper and 

 middle classes already pay under other forms of taxation more 

 than their due proportion of the public burdens, and an addi- 

 tional and necessarily discriminating duty laid upon them will 

 only make this inequality the greater. Class interest may thus op- 

 pose its veto to a change that promises to reduce the burdens of one 

 class of taxpayers at the expense of another; or may even oppose a 

 change that offers the chance of collecting a larger revenue with less 

 real difficulty and sacrifice on the part of the taxed. No opposition 

 can set aside even temporarily the great rules that clearly define a 

 tax from tribute, a legal and beneficial taking by the state of a cer- 

 tain part of the public wealth from a demand that involves waste or 

 mischievous expenditure, for which the state or people derive no ad- 

 vantage commensurate with the cost, or from which individuals ob- 

 tain a gain not defensible in justice, and at the expense of only one 

 part of the community. 



After so many centuries of experiment, in which hardly a pos- 

 sible source of state revenue has escaped attention, some knowledge 

 of the great principles of taxation might have been evolved. Unfor- 

 tunately, the experience of one nation is not accepted as containing 

 lessons applicable to the needs or conditions of another, and one gen- 

 eration rarely appeals to history save to defend its own experiments. 

 Ignorance, half knowledge, which is quite as dangerous, and interest 

 guide or influence legislation, and those who predict failure or danger 



